Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing July 31, 2018 (Video screenshot)
The president of the influential Family Research Council is warning that Democrats already have launched "a full-scale assault" on the faith and religious beliefs of the frontrunner to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, Amy Coney Barrett.
Tony Perkins noted on the FRC site a Reuters story about Barrett's association with "People of Praise," a Christian parachurch organization, that suggested the group was an "authoritarian" cult akin to the dystopian "Handmaid's Tale."
And Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, confirmed Monday that questions about Barrett's faith at the upcoming hearings will not be off limits.
Perkins said that while "the confirmation processes for Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were by no means uncontentious, what we will most likely see in the coming weeks, given the stakes of this nomination, will make those earlier fights look tame by comparison."
"The startling level of anti-Christian bias already on display against Barrett is a warning of what is likely to be leveled against whoever President Trump nominates for this seat," Perkins wrote.
In 2017, when Barrett was nominated for her current post on the Seventh Circuit, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., famously subjected her to an inquisition about her beliefs, saying, "The dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern."
Barrett's explanation of her faith was straightforward.
"If you're asking whether I take my Catholic faith seriously, I do, though I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge," she said.
The Constitution, Perkins explained, bans using religious beliefs to disqualify a candidate.
"No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States," it states.
Perkins noted Democratic "hostility" to Christians has not been limited to Barrett. Hirono and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., also made an issue of the faith of Brian Buescher, who was nominated to a federal post in Nebraska.
"Senate Democrats -- including the current Democrat vice presidential nominee -- have already shown they are preparing to apply a religious test for office," Perkins wrote. "As we have seen before, it won't matter who the nominee is -- the president's opponents are coming after them and if they can use the nominee's faith as a club to attack the nominee, recent history says they will."
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