CCG National Effort: End Religious Discrimination Against Judicial Nominees

Concern for Freedom

Catholics for the Common Good and CCG Advisor, former Ambassador Raymond L. Flynn have launched a national campaign to educate Catholics on the insidious record of de facto religious discrimination against nominees who are faithful Catholics and other Christians. “We are asking them to prepare to mobilize if religious discrimination rears its ugly head in the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process,” said Flynn.

Flynn and CCG issued their statement before President Bush announced Judge John Roberts as his choice fill the current vacancy on the high court. It is possible that Judge Roberts could be exposed to such de facto discrimination because of his faithful Catholic beliefs.

Those who, on the basis of respect for individual conscience, would view the moral duty of Christians to act according to their conscience as something that disqualifies them from political life, denying the legitimacy of their political involvement following from their convictions about the common good, would be guilty of a form of intolerant secularism.Such a position would seek to deny not only any engagement of Christianity in public or political life, but even the possibility of natural ethics itself.

Were this the case, the road would be open to moral anarchy. … The oppression of the weak by the strong would be the obvious consequence.

~ Pope John Paul II

“A number of faithful Catholics and other Christians already have been openly opposed in the confirmation process for their ‘deeply held religious beliefs,’ including people like William Pryor, Leon Holmes, Miguel Estrada, Robert Conrad, Carolyn Kuhl, and Henry Saad,” CCG member and attorney, Penny Preovolos. The nominees who have been most victimized are those who believe in the sanctity of human life at all stages and conditions.

In the face of filibusters, Judge Kuhl and Mr. Estrada asked to have their names withdrawn, and, after almost four years, Judge Henry Saad, nominee to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, is still being denied a vote before the full Senate, although he has a highly qualified rating with the American Bar Association and a majority of the Senate would support confirmation.

“As further proof of religious discrimination, NARAL was caught hiring private investigators to research judicial candidates’ donations to churches and other charities,” said CCG chairman Bill May. “NARAL President Nancy Keenan admitted to Robert Novak’s column that they are collecting information that ‘might help identify the “character” of judicial nominees.’ They refer to faithful Christian nominees as ‘out-of-touch theological activists’.”

The concern over potential discrimination against Catholics and other Christians was due to the open advocacy for an abortion litmus test in recent weeks by some Senate leaders and special interest groups.