SCOTUS, Christians, and Objectivity

Beware the ideological – even religious – attacks on Amy Coney Barrett:

It goes without saying that the secular left really does not like religious conservatives. This is one of the defining divisions in the modern West – certainly in America. Indeed, the US Democrats are now unapologetically the party of the radical secular left – they have fully mainstreamed this agenda.

This all-out war declared on conservatives and Christians by the woke progressives is everywhere apparent. Simply consider all the vile hatred being poured out on Trump by those who keep accusing him of hate: they are gleeful that Trump has Covid and many are saying they hope he dies.

Others have already documented this appalling leftist ugliness, including James Macpherson in a recent piece. He writes: “Donald Trump’s odds of recovering from COVID-19 are much better than the odds of Trump haters recovering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.” https://goodsauce.news/morally-superior-woketivists-jeer-wish-potus-death/

Recently the Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono from Hawaii provided yet another example of this prejudice against religious conservatives. On a leftist talk show she said she questioned whether Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett could be objective, since she is a prolife Catholic with a large family.

She said: “The issue is whether she can separate her deeply held views on issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights, whether she can separate her deeply held views from her ability to be fair and objective as a justice sitting there for years making decisions that impact all of our lives, starting with the Affordable Care Act.” https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/28/hirono-acbs-religion-immaterial-issue-is-whether-she-can-separate-views-on-abortion-lgbtq-rights/

A number of points can be said in response. First, everyone has an overriding worldview that they adhere to which colours how they think about things. This is true even of atheists and secular humanists. No one on the planet is completely objective, and everyone has a prior commitment to certain basic beliefs that influence how they approach life.

Secular humanism is the dominant worldview of the radical left – including Hirono. And it is every bit as religious. As Benjamin Wiker observed in his important 2013 book, Worshipping the State: How Liberalism Became Our State Religion:

In defining itself from top to bottom directly against Christianity, secular liberalism is a kind of inverse image, like a photo negative, of the religion it has so energetically worked to displace for the past several centuries. It is a kind of anti-Christian religion as extensive in its claims as the Christianity it denies, with its own set of passionately held beliefs and dogmas. It doesn’t just look like a religion. It doesn’t just function like a religion. It is a religion.

Or as Brendan Sweetman put it in Why Politics Needs Religion: “Let us not forget that the word religion is often interpreted to mean ‘a way of life.’ And secularism is a way of life just as much as traditional religion is, although it is not as widespread or well established.”

Image of Worshipping the State: How Liberalism Became Our State Religion
Worshipping the State: How Liberalism Became Our State Religion by Wiker, Benjamin (Author) Amazon logo

Since we are talking about SCOTUS here, recall that this august body itself ruled a half century ago that secular humanism is a religion. See the 1961 Torcaso v. Watkins case. As David Noebel put it in his carefully documented volume, Clergy in the Classroom: “Secular Humanism is a non-neutral perspective, complete with a philosophical view of ultimate reality (metaphysical naturalism) and a set of normative, ethical ideals. In short, it is a distinct and particular worldview.”

Yes we all have worldviews and we are all influenced by those worldviews. So this idea that a Catholic jurist is somehow incapable of thinking and ruling objectively is just ludicrous. She will be no more subjective and partial than any atheist jurist will be.

And one certainly has to ask if these same leftist Democrats who so despise ACB would make a similar sort of stink if a Muslim was nominated for the Supreme Court. Do we really believe they would carry on about how harmful religion is, and how impossible it is for such nominees to be objective? I don’t think so.

But Hirono went on to say this: “I have concerns about her willingness to, you know, to overturn Supreme Court precedent. Roe v. Wade is a previous Supreme Court decision. That’s a precedent. So, I would like to know because she has expressed a willingness to overturn precedent based on her own view of the Constitution.”

Really?! Does the Senator not know that there have been over 300 SCOTUS decisions that have later been overturned? As one write-up on this begins:

This is a list of decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States that have been explicitly overruled, in part or in whole, by a subsequent decision of the Court. It does not include decisions that have been abrogated by subsequent constitutional amendment or by subsequent amending statutes. As of 2018, the Supreme Court had overruled more than 300 of its own cases. The longest period between the original decision and the overruling decision is 136 years…. The shortest period is 11 months…. There have been 16 decisions which have simultaneously overruled more than one earlier decision; of these, three have simultaneously overruled four decisions each. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_overruled_United_States_Supreme_Court_decisions

So there is no reason at all to believe that Roe v. Wade or any other past SCOTUS decision is inviolate and incapable of being further examined at some point. That is simply how the Court works. As an article on Hirono correctly notes:

Her concern is that Barrett will not follow Democrats’ modern interpretation of the Constitution, which, they believe, supports the killing of unborn babies in abortions for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy. Hirono has been criticized for anti-Catholic bias in the past as well. In 2019, U.S. Senate leaders introduced a resolution to rebuke her and Sen. Kamala Harris after they criticized a federal judicial nominee because of his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic society that does a lot of charity work for pro-life pregnancy centers. https://www.lifenews.com/2020/10/02/mazie-hirono-amy-coney-barrett-cant-be-objective-because-shes-a-christian/

In sum, this is NOT about some religious conservative “taking over” SCOTUS and turning America into a theocracy. This is about radical leftists who despise conservatives – especially prolife ones – and do not want them to have any further influence in America’s top court.

Hey Hirono, your lack of objectivity is showing here, big time.

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11 Replies to “SCOTUS, Christians, and Objectivity”

  1. Dear Bill,
    Thank you for the article. Some of the comments made about President Trump since it was made known that he had contracted the Covid virus have been appalling and have mostly come from the left of politics as one would expect. A true Christian would not wish death on ANYONE and some commentators have actually said they hope he dies. Jesus taught us to love our enemies so even Christians who don’t particularly like or trust Donald Trump’s presidential style or past life would hope that he would recover so these people who have wished him harm have shown themselves up for what they are -completely godless and even worse controlled by Satan. I don’t think the comments will worry him one bit because he knows like Winston Churchill what he is up against and thinks positive. More importantly a leader has to be on the side of right and Donald Trump is pro-life and has acted accordingly so that is good enough for me.

  2. Dear Bill,
    We have to remember, Hirono, is of the same party that was so dead set on owning other humans, that they fought an actual war over it. Are we any bit surprised that they’ve been fighting a cold war over the murder of other humans?

  3. Dear Bill,
    Let me state the obvious…America needs the prayers of faithful Christians.
    The turmoil demonstrated in our streets today will not subside after the November 3rd election, regardless of that outcome. There are those on the Left who believe they have the impetus and will continue to press the battle.
    The ideology of the Left, as you have pointed out above, is filled with anger and cannot be satiated by one victory at the polls.
    Keep this great country in your prayers.
    Thank you for all you do daily and the always encouraging words of hope.
    Ron

  4. Hi Bill, Thought you should know (if you don’t already) because this needs serious prayer. Andrews is trying to push through the belt n road deal before Morrison can get the new legislation through. If you want to find out more, check out “Stop the sale of Victoria” Facebook page and then press on the name Morgan Jonas on the top of the page to get to his private facebook page. He does U Tube videos there and has up to date information and details as to what is happening. They are asking for others to email Morrison to hurry up with the legislation as time is running out. Kind regards Ingrid

  5. As I said before we all have religion the question is who is god?? Whoever is in charge, whoever grants you rights, whoever creates the guiding principles and philosophy of life you follow THAT is your god.

    Funny how the left sees the constitution as a “living breathing document” that changes over time till one of THEIR sacred cows is at stake then it is set in stone and must not be altered.

  6. Hi Bill, there are still prophets around hearing from God like yourself. Here are 10 urgent prophecies from Sid Roth’s Supernatural that predict God is going to cleanse America starting with the Judiciary of Attorney General Barr but we have to keep praying because there could be a closer assassination attempt on President Trump so he needs our continual prayers. The blood of the children has cried out too long.
    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMnEr2kQv2I

  7. It comes down to whether you honor truth or not. Is aborting a child taking away a person’s right to life? Are homosexual relationships actually equal to marriage? Does God exist and should His existence affect our decisions?

    If you believe, as atheists and the Democrats do, that God needs to be excluded from government then you are going to answer incorrectly to these questions because your concept of truth is incorrect. It is founded on wrong assumptions and, as a result, you actually have no true basis for correctly determining human rights.

    There is only one event in scripture I am aware of, other than the end of Revelation 13, where the number 666 is mentioned and that is in reference to the gold given to Solomon in 1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chron 9:13.

    In 1 Sam 8 we read how God considered the idea that Israel wanted a king as an insult (blasphemy) against Him and we know from the beginning of Revelation 13 that the Beast’s name is “Blasphemy” and later in Revelation 17 the Beast is associated with seven “kings” and a following eighth rule which is identified as the Beast itself.

    So simply taking a sola scriptura approach, if wanting a king was blasphemy against God how much more so is the desire to completely exclude God from government? Is this not the ultimate blasphemy and aligning against God?

  8. Great work, Bill. By every rational and judicial measure, the Roe v Wade majority relies on a very poor standard of legal reasoning, redolent of “whatever it takes” raw judicial power. And the principle of judicial precedent is that “it is not better that the law be persistently wrong than that it should be ultimately right”.

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