The Miers nomination continues to be "Mired in Religion," as this story in the Washington Post Online puts it. The article raises a few questions worth considering.
"Here's a two-part question for Harriet Miers: Are you, like John Roberts, willing to state unequivocally that your faith and your religion will not play a role in your judicial decisions? If so, why are Bush and Karl Rove telling everyone how religious you are?"
"And here's a two-part question for you readers: Do you really believe that neither Bush nor Rove know Miers' position on Roe v. Wade? And do you really believe that they aren't trying to telegraph that to the religious right?"
Bush's use of taxpayer dollars to fund "faith-based initiatives" and his use of religion as a decisive qualifying factor in a Supreme Court nomination puts our most cherished fundamental Constitutional value of separation of church and state in question. The implication of the emphasis on religion in the justification for the nomination is that the minority views of a "very conservative Christian" sect may be imposed on all Americans, atheist or agnostic, Christian, Muslim, or Jew.
Pat Robertson has railed against "liberal" judges as being "activist" and imposing their own views as the law of the land. The truth, as usual with this group, is otherwise. Those judges who have consistently upheld Roe v. Wade are not being activist. They are honoring the important principle of stare decisis to help ensure the stability of a gradually evolving Constitutional concept of justice that comports with today's civilized society.
But one has to think that the reason fundamentalist Christians like Pat Robertson are so pleased with the Miers nomination is because they expect her to be an activist judge on their behalf. The coded discussions about religion and assurances that her heart is in the right place appear intended for one purpose--to reassure fundamentalists that their minority value system of anti-abortion and anti-gay fervor will be imposed on the entire nation by the votes of Ms. Miers and Mr. Roberts, working with the already seated activist judges Scalia and Thomas.
Harold Meyerson may have hit upon an even more disturbing expectation. At the same Washington Post website, in a story entitled "More About Miers," is the following description of White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr.'s defense of Miers, from Meyerson's American Prospect Online.
"He testified to Miers' intellectualism by reminding listeners that Miers had majored in math," Meyerson reports. And "he suggested that Miers would be the staunchest proponent of executive power over that of the other two branches that the Court had seen in a very long time. Whom, exactly, this was meant to reassure is unclear."
Whom, indeed.
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