Putting Miers’ faith on the table

October 5, 2005

At yesterday’s White House press conference, the president briefly summarized one of the reasons he has so much faith in Harriet Miers’ abilities.

“I know her well enough to be able to say that she’s not going to change, that 20 years from now she’ll be the same person with the same philosophy that she is today. She’ll have more experience, she’ll have been a judge, but, nevertheless, her philosophy won’t change. And that’s important to me.”

Bush liked this sentiment Bush so much, he proceeded to repeat it. Twice.

The irony, of course, is that Miers has changed and she’s not the same person a couple of decades ago that she is today. Her “philosophy,” to use Bush’s word, has already changed dramatically.

With this in mind, it’s not unreasonable to explore Miers’ change and consider the kind of impact the change might have on her work as a Supreme Court justice. In this case, the transformation was driven by a religious conversion.

“[By 1979, Miers] decided that she wanted faith to be a bigger part of her life,” Justice Hecht, who now serves on the Texas Supreme Court, said in an interview. “One evening she called me to her office and said she was ready to make a commitment” to accept Jesus Christ as her savior and be born again, he said. He walked down the hallway from his office to hers, and there amid the legal briefs and court papers, Ms. Miers and Justice Hecht “prayed and talked,” he said.

She was baptized not long after that, at the Valley View Christian Church.

To say this had a significant impact on Miers is to put it mildly. She went from being a Democrat to being a Republican. She went from being a Roman Catholic to being a fundamentalist Protestant. She went from donating to Democrats to donating to anti-abortion groups.

Indeed, Miers’ church, where she’s tithed for many years, distributes antiabortion literature and screens films from James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.

It’s tempting to suggest that none of this is relevant, that there can be no religious test for public office so Miers religious background shouldn’t even be discussed. There is, however, a reasonable argument to the contrary.

As I recall, Dick Durbin broached the subject delicately with John Roberts, asking him how we’d proceed with a case if the law was in conflict with religious doctrine. Conservatives howled, Dems got scared, and the subject largely disappeared.

But for a judicial nominee for whom faith plays a central role in their worldview, as is apparently the case with Miers, senators are entitled to at least ask how religion might influence the nominee’s work on the high court.

E. J. Dionne, during Roberts’ confirmation process, noted that a liberal Catholic (Durbin) and a conservative Protestant (Tom Coburn) both discussed the nominee’s faith with him during one-on-one chats. Dionne suggested neither was wrong to bring up the subject and I’m inclined to agree.

[W]hy are we so afraid of acknowledging the obvious? At this moment in our history, religion is playing an important part in our public debates. If Roberts’s religious views are important to him, why should they be off-limits to honest discussion? […]

[I]f religion is to play a serious role in politics, believers have to accept the obligation to explain themselves publicly. That’s why it would be helpful if Roberts gave an account of how (and whether) his religious convictions would affect his decisions as a justice. President Bush has spoken about the political implications of his faith. His nominee should not be afraid to do the same.

Replace “Roberts” with “Miers” and you see we’re in the same place we were in early August.

Just so no one misunderstands my meaning, I’m not suggesting that Miers be given theological quizzes, that senators probe the depths of her beliefs, or that she somehow is less qualified because she’s a fundamentalist. I am suggesting that Miers, according to those who know her best, relies on her faith to guide her decisions and values.

With this in mind, it’s only fair to get a sense of how (or whether) this would affect her perspective on the Supreme Court.

WaPo had an article on this topic – not as enlightening as I would have hoped.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9593793/

However, this post at New Donkey looks at her church in context of the larger “Restorationis” picture. No claims to 100% accuracy, but hopefully informative.

http://www.newdonkey.com/2005/10/miers-and-her-church.html

  • If Miers, an evangelical, is a true believer in the faith, she cannot, according to her faith, support abortion in any way. Also, as was pointed out yesterday, Dobson is A-OK with her nomination and he’s the leading Evangelical in this country.

  • I’ve got some calls out to get more information on a recent schism in the church (one of the people I spoke to yesterday mentioned it in passing, but — stupid Babbler! — I didn’t press for details). Evidently the senior pastor, Ron Key, has left to form a new church, and Miers is supposedly following. Anyone have any ideas what the cause is?

  • Given the fact that she is most assuredly an ambitious sycophant, the most important question to ask about her conversion is, did it advance her career? Was VVCC a power church in Dallas? Did the “right” people belong? If she can convincingly say that W is the most brilliant man she has ever met, then she can fake religious conviction. The Republicans in the Senate should chew over these questions.

  • Interestingly, this was one of the comments to a critical post on the Southern Appeal blog this morning:

    The nomination has been made. Are you going to advocate defeating the only Protestant Evangelical to be nominated to the Supreme Court in 75 years? I suggest you shut up and avoid giving any more ammunition to the left, which hates us with a passion. You have enough Catholics on the Court. It is our turn.

    Sorta says it all – there’s an entitlement feeling based on religion going on among the religious right.

  • What’s funny is that I’m sure that the reason why we’re not supposed to ask Roberts and presumably Miers questions about this isn’t because they’ll say answers that offend ACLU-types. But rather because it would offend fundimentalist Christians if the nominee answers correctly and says that their faith won’t overrule our laws.

    And red-state senators would have a hard time voting for a justice who explictly stated that God’s law doesn’t trump man’s law. It’s the right answer, but not the one they’d want to hear. So that’s why righties don’t want it asked.

  • Religious fundamentalism is a red flag to me. I don’t know that a fundamentalist is “less qualified” per se, but fundamentalist religious beliefs do seem, to me, to be, potentially, at odds, with the application of reason and evidence in the judicial process.

    I love the way we say, “relies on her faith to guide her decisions and values” as if evangelicals are somehow more ethical, because of their faith. From my observation, evagelical, fundamentalist beliefs appear to “justify” to their holders support of the Republican party and its callous and authoritarian social and political policies. It is authoritarianism, which concerns me in a Justice, because it means closing the courthouse door to all appeals for justice and fair play from those who may be oppressed by power, wealth and authority.

    Miers probably thinks Bush’s new found authority to detain and torture is a good thing. That’s what her faith has done for her.

    Let her be confirmed. Maybe she’ll get hit by a truck.

  • This is from the Oct 1 NY Times (I’m gradually getting caught up after returning from my trip). It’s in line with more scholarly reports I’ve seen over the last twenty years or so, primarily comparing the US with other industrial (mostly European) nations.

    The dark side of faith
    By ROSA BROOKS

    IT’S OFFICIAL: Too much religion may be a dangerous thing.

    This is the implication of a study reported in the current issue of the Journal of Religion and Society, a publication of Creighton University’s Center for the Study of Religion. The study, by evolutionary scientist Gregory S. Paul, looks at the correlation between levels of “popular religiosity” and various “quantifiable societal health” indicators in 18 prosperous democracies, including the United States.

    ADVERTISEMENT Paul ranked societies based on the percentage of their population expressing absolute belief in God, the frequency of prayer reported by their citizens and their frequency of attendance at religious services. He then correlated this with data on rates of homicide, sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy, abortion and child mortality.

    He found that the most religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. Of the nations studied, the U.S. — which has by far the largest percentage of people who take the Bible literally and express absolute belief in God (and the lowest percentage of atheists and agnostics) — also has by far the highest levels of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

    This conclusion will come as no surprise to those who have long gnashed their teeth in frustration while listening to right-wing evangelical claims that secular liberals are weak on “values.” Paul’s study confirms globally what is already evident in the U.S.: When it comes to “values,” if you look at facts rather than mere rhetoric, the substantially more secular blue states routinely leave the Bible Belt red states in the dust.

    Murder rates? Six of the seven states with the highest 2003 homicide rates were “red” in the 2004 elections (Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina), while the deep blue Northeastern states had murder rates well below the national average. Infant mortality rates? Highest in the South and Southwest; lowest in New England. Divorce rates? Marriages break up far more in red states than in blue. Teen pregnancy rates? The same.

    Of course, the red/blue divide is only an imperfect proxy for levels of religiosity. And while Paul’s study found that the correlation between high degrees of religiosity and high degrees of social dysfunction appears robust, it could be that high levels of social dysfunction fuel religiosity, rather than the other way around.

    Although correlation is not causation, Paul’s study offers much food for thought. At a minimum, his findings suggest that contrary to popular belief, lack of religiosity does societies no particular harm. This should offer ammunition to those who maintain that religious belief is a purely private matter and that government should remain neutral, not only among religions but also between religion and lack of religion. It should also give a boost to critics of “faith-based” social services and abstinence-only disease and pregnancy prevention programs.

    We shouldn’t shy away from the possibility that too much religiosity may be socially dangerous. Secular, rationalist approaches to problem-solving emphasize uncertainty, evidence and perpetual reevaluation. Religious faith is inherently nonrational.

    This in itself does not make religion worthless or dangerous. All humans hold nonrational beliefs, and some of these may have both individual and societal value. But historically, societies run into trouble when powerful religions become imperial and absolutist.

    The claim that religion can have a dark side should not be news. Does anyone doubt that Islamic extremism is linked to the recent rise in international terrorism? And since the history of Christianity is every bit as blood-drenched as the history of Islam, why should we doubt that extremist forms of modern American Christianity have their own pernicious and measurable effects on national health and well-being?

    Arguably, Paul’s study invites us to conclude that the most serious threat humanity faces today is religious extremism: nonrational, absolutist belief systems that refuse to tolerate difference and dissent.

    My prediction is that right-wing evangelicals will do their best to discredit Paul’s substantive findings. But when they fail, they’ll just shrug: So what if highly religious societies have more murders and disease than less religious societies? Remember the trials of Job? God likes to test the faithful.

    To the truly nonrational, even evidence that on its face undermines your beliefs can be twisted to support them. Absolutism means never having to say you’re sorry.

    And that, of course, is what makes it so very dangerous.

  • I understand everything that’s being said,
    but there’s the little matter of the
    Constitution, Article VI, 3. “. . . shall be
    bound by oath or affirmation to support
    this Constitution; but no religious test
    shall ever be required as a qualification
    to any office or public trust under the
    United States.”

    The only valid question of this nominee would
    be whether there is anything at all that would
    prevent her from taking such oath or affirmation.
    If she screams out, “Yes, my fundamentalism
    trumps the Constitution,” okay, but in the
    absence of that, her religious beliefs are not
    relevant.

  • “Why, sir, I do support the Consitution. I support it by making it better, more sound, more lasting more meaningful. And I do that by reading it in light of the even higher authority, the authority of God, whose Commandments set the stage for that Constitution and whose grace and glory made it and this divine nation possible. So I do not see my faith and values as contrary to our system of laws; I believe a more Godly view protects our Constitution by ensuring it is interpretated in a way pleasing to our Holy Father and Protector.”

    For those who have gulped the Kool-Aid, there is no problem taking the oath of office and yet thinking their fundy-freaky views trump the law. Contrary to what most of us sane folk might think.

  • The thing was, if you look at Texas (and national) history and politics, the precise timing of her, um, change of life was so useful, career-wise — to turn her into an “obsequious instrument.”

    I hope you all saw the splendid quotation from Mr. Alexander H., one of our FF’s, who wrote (I think Sirota was the first one today to find this and post it but I’m copping it from TPM Cafe where Kate Cambor has it):

    “[The President] would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.”

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