Name one qualified Muslim, and He should be considered. Until then, how can we judge.

The tensions over the requirement to read the KJV Bible in public schools in the early 1800s was one of the factors that led Catholics to build their own educational institutions. Tensions over education have led many modern Christians to build their own schools or to home school. Within a religious organization, religion can be a unifying factor. Between people of different religions, religion can be a source of tension. The message that the vocal religious advocates (and anti-religion advocates) most need to hear is that pushing your own beliefs onto others is divisive. Too often, people who are pushing a religious or philosophical point of view do not understand that their push is divisive. When most of the push is coming from one direction, those doing the pushing often fail to empathize.

I believe that an anti-abortion, anti-worker, pro-business, anti-civil liberties Muslim could be nominated.

The perfect Muslim nominee would be Clareance Thomas in a turbin. I a form of polical judo, any criticism would be labelled intolerance. That was the plan with Miers until the attacks started coming from the right.

The only reason we have five Catholics on the court is that on social issues the Church (but not a majortity of its members) is hard core right wing. This should not be viewed as shocking. The setting is completley different than it was even thirty years ago.

Steve, I'm a conservative who has been following your writings on foreign policy with great interest and sympathy, but you've lost me with your knee-jerk attacks on Alito. Is your point here that it is bad to have so many Catholics on the court? Or that any devout Catholic should be ruled out as fit to serve? This is somewhat offensive.

The full-test of Kristof's column is here:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110105Z.shtml

What is this new buzz about wire taps Fitzgerald obtained that are ongoing. I thought this was over?

Cathy, I didn't see any knee jerk attack on Alito from Steve...maybe you're being too sensitive...

Cathy -- my objection to Alito has nothing at all to do with religion. My comment was made on the basis that one's religion, in this case one's Catholicism, has become a non-issue. If you re-read my post, you will see that I think that is a good thing. My post now is not about objecting to or endorsing Alito...it's a post about religious identity and the intensity of "religiousness" and the political dimensions of these.

So, I'm sorry to seem offensive with the post. That's certainly not my intention.

My objection to Alito has everything to do with his past judicial record.

More later...and thanks for your note,

Steve Clemons

When I am standing in the security line at the airport check in I have often thought 'It would be nice to have a Muslim on the Supreme Court of the U.S'. As I fill up my car and watch the dollar guage spinning around, I think to myself 'Yeah, Muslim on the Supreme Court'. I pick up the newspaper and read where #2000 has been iced in Muslim Iraq and all those tax dollars spent on hunting Muslim Taliban in Muslim Afghanistan, I think 'Yeah, nice to have someone who prays to some nebulous spot in the Near Eastern desert five times a day sitting on the highest court in the land. That would tilt the balance towards reason and understanding! Let's do it!'

Thanks for your reply, Steve.

As all of you are participating in this latest Dog and Pony Show, meant to divide, distract, and obscure, please bear in mind that 92 American servicemen were killed in October, having had died for Bush's fictitious "noble cause".

The Downing Street Memo is irrefutable PROOF that these men and women died for a LIE. The war in Iraq is ILLEGAL. Our President and his advisors are WAR CRIMINALS.

Now I ask you, if our government operates outside the law, what difference does it make who is tasked to administer to the law? We are watching a charade, as we argue ideals and ethics that no longer concern those that reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I have an institutional religious objection to any Catholic occupying a seat on the Supreme Court: simply that the Catholic Church has threated lawmakers with the highest penalties if they don't toe the line on issues like abortion.
If Alito publicly and unequivocally repudiates the Vatican stance on threats of excommunication, etc., for lawmakers and judges, and guarantees that no decision of his will be influenced by the possibility of excommuncation, then my problems with his as a Catholic will be over.

While we are on the subject of Muslim wisdom: Ever wonder why only 72 virgins? Eternity is a long time. (By the by, where do these virgins come from, Earth? Venus? Do they have any say in the matter?[We won't even get into what female suicide bombers get] After all, it's eternity we are talkin' about here)And if you get through the 72 do you get any more? Or do you start over? But then they're not virgins anymore, are they? But then if TIME itself (not the magazine) is obliterated at the moment of death, boinking just one virgin would take forever, yah? So why 71 more? Certainly a Muslim nominee to the Supremes would be questioned about this by Mr. Spector, et al?

Finest, why not have Scalito explain the biology of the virgin birth? All religious doctrine is full of nonsense... but it's considered gauche to point this out in public.

I don't think it's about religion (and I'm a super devout pcbs just like you, Steve). I think it's about power One always has to admire people who achieve power over themselves -- but I have zero respect for those whose goal is power over others, be it political power, religious power, neurolinguistic programming, medical hacks, media moguls, or whatever.

That said, I'm going to put my life on the line here and say I don't think abortion is anything more than a red herring. The issues here are privacy in all its forms and executive powers.

I think Alito is a great big trap for the Dems. I'd be inclined to back off, let the Republicans continue to bury themselves, take back Congress, use legislative power to solidify privacy in all its many aspects and correct the tilt towards executive power by overturning things like that executive order Bush signed in 2001. Let's get checks and balance back. Let's quit hanging ourselves with the abortion issue by recognizing that a large percentage of voters want to leave Roe where it is.

Interesting that Catholics are less than 1/4 of the US population and about 30% of the self identified Christians in the US. There are 2 Jewish Supreme court members and Jews are maybe about 1% of the US population. What is most surprising is so few Protestants.

I was thinking about what Bakho pointed out about the relatively small number of Protestants, couldn't this be used as a club against the Christian Right? Correct me if I am wrong but don't most of these Churches consider the RC church to be evil? It needs to be pointed out to them again & again that they are suckers, the GOP gives them almost nothing.

Separation of church and state? Where in the world did you come up with that ridiculous notion? This is the new and improved Soviet United State of America. The state is the church and the church is the state. Have you all forgotten about the pledge of allegiance ruckus. Americans pledge their allegiance to a flag, a republic, and under god. This isn't some kind of Euro-trash democracy, this is America where religion and the religious are king. You'll all feel so much better after we've finished our work and dismantled that silly illusive document, the Constitution. Shortly after that, the Prozac will be handed out to one and all. Relax and enjoy the Supreme Soviet.

I prefer: The People's Republic of Vespucci

Hi Steve,

I followed with great interest your coverage of the Festivities for St-Fitzmas. I'm from France and you know French media are ... quite a bit biased...so it was really helpful.

But, may be you don't know, just one thing about your "Muslim appointed to Supreme Court Justice" :

Civil war has just began in France.

I think if a Muslim were a clearly qualified candidate, and was on record as believing (as most Muslims in the World clearly do not) that state and religion are properly separate, that should be no bar. But to use it as a criterion is clearly wrong: religion per se should never be a basis of choice, for or against.

David,
None of Bush's nominees clearly pass this test.

Steve:

I am a Christian and I consider myself to be a member of the religious left. I can also tell you, there are a lot more people like me than many may think. I don't consider myself to be a "religiously inspired political zealot", however.

I only wish George W. Bush were really a Christian. He isn't. It is just politically expedient for him to claim that he is. Christ foresaw charlatans like Mr. Bush when he said, "By their actions, ye shall know them". Talk is cheap for conservatives. Watch their actions, to really judge the depth of their piety.

Let's hope George Bush converts to Chrsitianity soon and rejects this bizarre, Druid-like death worship cult he is currently entralled in.

Stephen Kriz has just reminded us of something we need to be reminded of: we need to stop accepting the right's self-labelling. It distracts us from the truth: it is intended to distract us from the truth.

Steve -- I'm delighted that you know folks who express their Christian beliefs without religiously inspired political zealotry. But where I live the churches are predominantly just the opposite. Proselytizing is the norm among these "christians" -- here at home and in their missions abroad, along with political activism to advance social conservativism's goals. You should take a look at the Ohio Restoration Movement, as just one example. Of course there are Christians who work hard to live out their faith through their service to others. But your comment that "religion in our nation's communities is usually NOT tilted towards political pretensions" is, in my experience, too broad.

Alito has been nominated for one reason only: he’s a pious Catholic who is willing to impose his religion on the rest of us. The right wing of the court is populated solely by Catholic believers: Scalia, Roberts, and Thomas. If Alito is confirmed, the right wing will be entirely Catholic, and the new swing voter- Anthony Kennedy- is also an observant Catholic.

On the so-called “left” (there is no left- these are all moderates), there are a moderately observant Jew, a non-practicing Jew, an Episcopalian, and a non-denominational Protestant.

The only non-Catholic justices nominated by a Republican since Ford are Souter (Episcopalian) and O’Connor (Episcopalian), and the fundamentalists HATE them. Miers, a Protestant fundamentalist herself, didn’t make it because she wasn’t wingnutty enough. That is because Protestants who are educated enough to be Supreme Court justices also become too moderate for the fundamentalist clerics. There is no tradition of Protestant fundamentalist legal scholarship. Catholics, on the other hand, have been comfortable with philosophical and legalistic debate for centuries.

So you just can’t find a Protestant or Jew who (a) can do the work and (b) is acceptable to the radical right. The only place you can find someone with a commitment to legal reasoning AND a fierce opposition to women’s rights and gay rights is in the seminary.

Rehnquist, of course, was a Lutheran. But Rehnquist grew up a long time ago. The Protestant churches have moved on in the last half-century- at least, those that can produce individuals committed to legal scholarship have. The Catholic Church hasn’t.

So Alito's Catholicism isn't an interesting sidelight. It's the whole point. The individual liberties of Americans are about to be taken away by a conclave of black-robed judges in thrall to red-hatted cardinals.

Claiming to be religious or born again and the like is no longer an indication of anything (if indeed it ever was). I used to think that if someone claimed a devoutness to god, while it may mean a certain intolerance to premarital sex, it also meant a willingness to help the poor and the elderly, a degree of sympathy to those in emotional distress, a desire to work things out peacefully, forgiveness, and other New Testament promoted traits. As many have noted these past few years, to be religious in the 21st century context, one merely has to claim it verbally.

People like Pat Roberts, Gary Bauer, Billy Graham's son, etc., all seem to have jumped onto the blood and guts Old Testament train. Which begs the question of how can they consider themselves to be "Christian" if they espouse pre-Christian era theology and behavior?

So, let's no longer let someone running for office, or up for an appointment, claim they are religious without some follow-up. Obviously, they are looking for some credit for being religious so let's grill them on the specifics of how they manifest their religiousness.

Bush is The Deceiver, and thus a Satanist.

Think about it this way: If Roe is overturned, EVERY vote to overturn it will come from a Catholic; and every non-Catholic on the court will vote to uphold it.

Alito wll make the 5th Catholic on the SCOTUS.

5 Catholics = Bye, Bye, Birth Control

Would fit nicely on a bumper sticker

When Might We See a Muslim Supreme Court Justice?

Sooner than an atheist one.

There are fifty times as many Catholics in the US as there are Muslims. Why is it then odd that there have been ten Catholics on the SCOTUS and no Muslims? Even if that number were to double, and a single Muslim were to be appointed, Muslims would be disproportionately represented by over two-to-one.

Hopefully we will never see a muslim on the Supreme Court or any other court in the nation.

The Democrats should splinter the fake-Religious Right by reminding them that a 5th Catholic means that a Pope who looks (and acts) like Count Dracula, becomes the defacto Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

I don't think the red states will be happy that American Law will be dictated from the Vatican in Italy. Some of the Protestants and Jews might understand that their viewpoints will be minority viewpoints.

They all agree on abortion, but what will come after abortion, supported by Catholics and not by Protestants?

Democrats must find a way to pit parts of the Bush Base against each other. We've seen some of that in the past weeks.

It seems reasonable to be concerned when a majority on the Court is from one specific minority religion.

Interestingly, the GOP has a lock on the rightwing religious fundamentalists. They are still courting working class Catholics.

One wonders about the death penalty given the position of the Catholic Church. Cruel and unusual indeed.

Catholics are the largest denomination of Christians in the U.S. Being Protestant is not a religion, it is a classification. Baptists are the second largest denomination by the way. So classifying Catholicism as a specific minority religion is misleading and sounds a little loaded. After all this is also the religion of the two senators from Massachusetts and many other leading liberals. As anyone who knows Catholics should know, we have individual diverse views on many of the leading social issues of the day and to assume someone’s religion or religiosity will prevent them from handing out impartial justice is a bit insulting.

One wonders about the death penalty given the position of the Catholic Church. Cruel and unusual indeed.

Scalia's position on Catholic judges who oppose the death penalty seems rather curious, given that he appears to have a commensurate position with regard to abortion.

Catholic judges in support of the death penalty can be used to show that they are NOT controlled by the Vatican.

I was born and rasied as a Catholic, so I don't have an unreaslistic fear of catholicism, but I do think it is bad policy to have a majority of the Supreme Court Justices belong to the same church, regardless of what church it is.

Unlike elected office, this is a lifetime position, with no electoral remedy, should it prove to be a problem.

We are a diverse nation with multiple religons practiced. Having a majority from one religion, for life, could potentially impinge on the very important principle of seperation of church and state.

When you consider that the Catholic Church is headquartered outside the US and maintains its own diplomatic realtions with other countries, unlike other religions, and some of its leaders have threatned elected US offcials with denial of certain religious rites if they vote the wrong way, and no recourse to change things because of the lifetime tenure, and I think it's a problem we should not risk.

I plan to, once again, call everyone on the Judiciary Committee as well as the committee staff, to ask if there is a legal precendence for having a majority of the justices belong to the same religion.

a muslim justice would be good....yeah, cut off hands for stealing, stone to death for adultery, cut out tongues for lying...