One of Joe Biden’s staffers is coming under fire for suggesting that people who are Catholic, Jewish or Muslim should be disqualified from being Supreme Court justices on account of their “intolerant” views.
The controversial staffer, Nikitha Rai, is a deputy data director for the Biden campaign. She made these bigoted comments while discussing the religious views of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett with Brookings Institute Senior Fellow Shadi Hamid on Twitter.
Hamid asked why it was news that Barrett had been a trustee at a Catholic school opposed to same-sex marriage and whose stance was that homosexual acts were “at odds with scripture.”
“Isn’t this the standard position for any orthodox Catholic?” Hamid asked.
Rai answered, “Unfortunately yes.”
When Hamid pointed out that Jews and Orthodox Muslims also share this view, she replied: “I'd heavily prefer views like that not be elevated to SCOTUS, but unfortunately, our current culture is still relatively intolerant. It will be a while before those types of beliefs are so taboo that they're disqualifiers.”
When her comments started coming under fire, she cowardly locked her Twitter account. When she was asked for a comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation, she ignored it and then blocked them from contacting her. The Biden campaign has not commented on the remarks.
If she truly believes that Catholics and people of other religions cannot be impartial on the Supreme Court, then perhaps this logic should also be applied to the leader of our country? If so, her own boss, Joe Biden, is also not qualified given his Catholic faith; he is often said to be a “devout Catholic” – although that is debatable given his support for abortion.
Who exactly does Rai want to serve on the Supreme Court? If we disqualify all people who practice religions based on the Bible, it would eliminate not only Catholics, Muslims and Jews but also Christians and Mormons as well. The beliefs she is so concerned about here are in the holy books of many religions.
Liberals’ beloved Ruth Bader Ginsburg was Jewish, as are current justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts are all Catholic, while Neil Gorsuch is Episcopalian but was raised Catholic. Are all of these justices problematic for her as well?
Religion disqualifying people from the Supreme Court goes against the Constitution
Of course, the very idea of a person’s religion making them unqualified for the Supreme Court -- or any other office -- goes against the Constitution itself. Article VI, Clause 3 states: "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." And in any case, Supreme Court justices must put aside all of their personal beliefs and make their decisions based on what the Constitution says.
The comments come as Barrett’s faith continues to be attacked by liberals. Her 2017 confirmation hearings made national news when some Democrats implied that her Catholic faith would make her unfit to be a judge.
When Barrett, who used to be a clerk for late Justice Antonin Scalia, went before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings in 2017, Senator Dianne Feinstein said: “Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that dogma and law are two different things, and I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different.”
“The conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern,” she added.
Barrett, however, has already demonstrated her ability to judge fairly. She said on that occasion: “It's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions, whether they arise from faith or anywhere else, on the law.”
Why does believing in God and the Bible, like so many other Americans, make her unfit to serve on the Supreme Court? Rai, like the party she works for, is the epitome of the intolerance they claim to abhor. Liberals love to call for tolerance, but when it’s time to practice what they preach, it’s always a far different story.
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