David French of National Review Online watches with alarm as critics line up to oppose Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s potential appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.
If you ever need much evidence that the growing “God gap” in American politics fosters an immense amount of ignorance and occasionally outright bigotry, look no farther than the concern — the alarm, even — that Amy Coney Barrett is on President Trump’s short list to replace Anthony Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court.
The alarm isn’t about her credentials. She’s checked every box of excellence — law review, appellate-court clerkship, Supreme Court clerkship (with Justice Scalia), elite law-firm experience, law professor at an elite law school, and now experience as a federal judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She’s a young, brilliant woman at the apex of her profession.
So, beyond her obvious originalist judicial philosophy (shared to varying degrees by every person on Trump’s list of potential nominees), what’s the problem with Judge Barrett. Why do some progressives single her out for particular scorn?
It turns out that she’s a faithful Christian who lives a Christian life very similar to the lives of millions upon millions of her fellow American believers.
No, really, that’s the objection. …
… I don’t know Judge Barrett personally, but I know her by reputation. She’s widely acknowledged to be a brilliant law professor, and she’s a role model for Christian professionals who are committed to excellence in their careers and to loving Christ, their families, and their neighbors. If she’s deemed unfit for the Supreme Court, then the religious test is alive and well.
