Hawaii Congresswoman Calls Out Fellow Hawaii Senator Hirono For “Fomenting Religious Bigotry” During Judicial Nominee Questioning
“No American should be told that his or her public service is unwelcome because “the dogma lives loudly within you” as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said to Amy Coney Barrett.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) wrote a scathing op-ed, which was published in The Hill Tuesday, in which she lambasted lawmakers who questioned US district judicial nominee Brian Buescher about his affiliation with the Catholic organization, Knights of Columbus.
While Rep. Gabbard never mentioned Sen. Hirono by name, the only two Senators to have made an issue of Buescher’s participation in the Knights of Columbus were Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI).
From Rep. Gabbard’s op-ed:
We must stand together, and with one voice condemn those who seek to incite bigotry based on religion. We cannot allow those who are anxious to exploit our differences to drive a wedge between us. We cannot and will not tolerate prejudicial treatment of those with whom we disagree, any more than we would tolerate such treatment of those with whom we agree.
…While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. If Buescher is “unqualified” because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the ‘liberal lion of the Senate’ Ted Kennedy would have been “unqualified” for the same reasons.
Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that there “shall be no religious test” for any seeking to serve in public office.No American should be told that his or her public service is unwelcome because “the dogma lives loudly within you” as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said to Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearings in 2017 to serve as U.S. Circuit Court judge in the 7th Circuit.
While I absolutely believe in the separation of church and state as a necessity to the health of our nation, no American should be asked to renounce his or her faith or membership in a faith-based, service organization in order to hold public office.
The party that worked so hard to convince people that Catholics and Knights of Columbus like Al Smith and John F. Kennedy could be both good Catholics and good public servants shows an alarming disregard of its own history in making such attacks today.
We must call this out for what it is – religious bigotry. This is true not just when such prejudice is anti-Catholic, but also when it is anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Hindu, or anti-Protestant, or any other religion.
According to Hawaii News Now, the public flame war is highly unusual among the state’s federal delegation. Sen. Hirono’s office issued the following statement in response to Rep. Gabbard’s op-ed:
“Senator Hirono, asks all judicial nominees – particularly those who have expressed very strong personal ideological views in conflict with Supreme Court precedent – if they can be fair. She asked Mr. Buescher, who has a clear record of anti-choice activism, whether he could separate his personal beliefs from decisions he would make if confirmed for a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Over the past two years, the Senator has been attacked by right wing ideologues for her examination of Donald Trump’s ideologically-driven nominees to the courts. It is unfortunate that Congresswoman Gabbard based her misguided opinion on the far-right wing manipulation of these straightforward questions.” – Will Dempster, spokesperson for Sen. Hirono
And Rep. Gabbard’s spokeswoman sent HNN the following statement:
“Our freedom of religion is enshrined in our Constitution and in our Bill of Rights, which so many brave Americans across generations have put their lives on the line to protect. No nominee for public service should be disqualified, either directly or indirectly because of their religion or religious affiliation. While Rep. Gabbard opposes this nomination, it has no basis in any religious litmus test. She will always fight for religious freedom and oppose religious bigotry — no matter where it comes from.” – Lauren McIlvaine, spokeswoman for Rep. Gabbard
Rep. Gabbard’s father is a member of the Knights of Columbus.
We covered the bizarre questioning of Buescher here:
Two Dem Senators question judicial nominee’s membership in … Knights of Columbus
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Comments
Judges rule by applying the law as defined by the US Constitution and case precedents. Liberals on the other hand, rule by selecting random global precedents and reference their personal feelings. In a “personal feelings” based law system, there is no appreciation for people who are guided by their faith personal and integrity. It’s the wild west.
The old West wasn’t nearly as wild as the Leftist Federal Judges when ruling against conservatives or religiously guided people.
Anti-Catholicism goes way back in the US and is still with us. Hillary even attacked Sen. Tim Kaine in 2016. But if you really want to see how ugly and deep the sentiment can be, read the history of Al Smith’s presidential campaign in 1928. JFK made a beautiful speech addressing his own Catholicism in 1960 that mirrored Al Smith’s famous “I am not the Catholic candidate for president” statement.
It seems to me that any number of comments I’ve encountered on the ‘net while purporting to be criticism of Pope Francis amount to little more than thinly veiled anti-Catholicism.
I’ve never seen it. I’m Catholic and have posted nothing but negative comments about Pope Frankie. Most Catholics have learned to keep their feelings about the Vatican separate from those about their faith.
But I have experience plenty of anti-Catholicism in my personal life. Southern Baptists are not shy about it.
Pope Francis is hugely unpopular for numerous reasons all on his own, and criticism of him is not “anti-Catholicism,” nor is criticism of how the church has handled the global pedophile priest scandal. Get over yourself and clean up your church.
I clearly remember the Kennedy-Nixon contest in 1960, where JFK’s Catholicism was a campaign issue. So now the lefties are reviving THAT argument? Their hypocrisy never ends.
Red on Red. Just so you know, Mazie is generally thought an idiot in Hawaii. Gabbard has a 93% approval rating.
Tulsi is much easier on the eyes, too!
Odd that the people of Hawaii elect Mazie even though “many” of them consider her an idiot. What can one conclude about people who vote for someone they know is an idiot? Or perhaps, they don’t think she is an idiot and agree with her angry bigotry? Just another state not meriting my dollars.
So SRT, are you going to leave home at all. Just about every State has been electing idiots. We seem to be ruled in this country by an idiot-ocracy. If the thought wasn’t so revolting, I would say it is time for a revolution.
As noted in the posts, the most of the people of Hawaii know Mazie is an idiot but vote for her anyway. So they must agree with her. I prefer to believe that people in most other states vote for idiots who fool them into thinking that they are not idiots. For instance, Claire McCaskill consistently lied to her voters because she knew they didn’t agree with her positions. When they figured that out, she was voted out of office. Naive of me perhaps, but that’s my story and i’m sticking to it.
I’d be willing to bet you 5$ that most democrats don’t really know who they are voting for, they just mark/pull the democratic party line on the ballot
She ain’t called Crazy Mazie for nothin’, brah!
It’s just not the folks in Hawaii who think Mazie’s an idiot.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI): Hey @ realdonaldtrump being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not “America First.”
Her “attack [on] President Trump for his remarks concerning Saudi Arabia after the CIA concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” As a reminder …
Thanks for the reminder. Whenever you think you have found a reasonable Democrat they do/say something to dispel that thought.
From,
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/06/germany-antifa-fascists-disrupt-force-cancellation-of-university-event-on-islamization?fbclid=IwAR3BZ6vpRYoViV5CGNXFwGkgHAxAGci5rvx7_FjYGM479xsBmO9-uj8bgMo
[While the following remarks pertain to a would-be lecture on islamization of the West, they apply equally to any topic which the bien pensant, like D reps and senators, deem off-limits (the list of such topics seems endless); that to which Abrams is being subject proves Abrams point perfectly]
Yet again we see it. In The Coming of the Third Reich, historian Richard J. Evans explains how, in the early days of National Socialist Germany, Stormtroopers (Brownshirts) “organized campaigns against unwanted professors in the local newspapers [and] staged mass disruptions of their lectures.” To express dissent from Nazi positions became a matter of taking one’s life into one’s hands. The idea of people of opposing viewpoints airing their disagreements in a civil and mutually respectful manner was gone. One was a Nazi, or one was silent (and fearful).
Today’s fascists call themselves “anti-fascists.” Just like the Nazis, they are totalitarian: they are determined not to allow their opponents to murmur the slightest whisper of dissent [such as being a Baptist, a Roman Catholic, a Columbian Knight]. Forcibly suppressing the speech of someone with whom one disagrees is a quintessentially fascist act.
These fascists will target you for destruction if you oppose jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women and others.
if you studied history and had half a brain cell left most people should know that
Hawaiian polytheism makes SO MUCH MORE sense than Christianity.
Gabbard is positioning herself to run for president.
No Democrat would ever DARE make a comment denigrating someone’s Islamic faith. Thugs always stick together!
@Pasadena Phil
I have, some of which was as malicious and ignorant as the antisemitism on the ‘net. Unlike the latter, not encountered as frequently.
As a Catholic, I was not too concerned about how Senators Feinstein and Harris discriminated against Catholic judge nominees on their faith. I figured such nominees are bright enough to counter bigotries with lawyerly skills.
But Hirono was something else. To tell the truth, what shocked me most was her utter disregard for due process during the Kavanaugh hearings. There was a cold cruelty about her that sent chills down my spine. Cold cruel. I should be embarrassed to tell how it affected me, but I feel a need to air it out, anyway.
You see, I’m a naturalized US citizen who grew up in post-WWII Philippines amidst stories of Japanese atrocities committed against my people during the war. Such stories I gradually and totally forgot upon meeting good Japanese people my age as I became an adult. Some of them became close friends of mine, so close that I’ve stopped believing in the horrendous stories I heard about the war. I know and believe the Japanese to be good and moral people who could be achingly gracious, polite and solicituous to friends and strangers.
But watching and listening to Hirono during the Kavanaugh hearings became so painful to me personally there was minute I had to turn off the TV. Cold. Cruel. No due process? All men guilty by accusation? Does she have a father, a brother, a husband, a son, a male relative, a male friend? Hirono’s cold cruelty just made all those horrifying war stories come back to mind so helplessly until the sight and sound of her made me sick.
Please tell me that if someone ever says to Hirono that God sees everything she thinks and does, that she’ll believe it? Because I don’t think she will.
“While I absolutely believe in the separation of church and state as a necessity to the health of our nation, no American should be asked to renounce his or her faith or membership in a faith-based, service organization in order to hold public office.”
________________________
If you really believe in the separation of church and state as a necessity to the health of our nation, then how do you justify allowing muslims, who do not believe that, to serve in the congress?
Islam teaches that man-made laws, such as the U.S. constitution, are inherently sinful, and that it is the duty of muslims to replace such laws with the “perfect word” of allah. Yet muslim congress-persons took an oath of allegiance to our constitution (with hands on a koran that teaches that our constitution is illegitimate, and that swearing false oaths is permissible to fool infidels).
“Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that there ‘shall be no religious test’ for any seeking to serve in public office.”
But what if the religion is also a political and social ideology, and one that is antithetical to the U.S. constitution and the principles it expresses?
taqiyya
kitman
I think these terms answer any questions.
If he had been a member of “The Jihadists of Muhammad”, the same Democrats protesting his Catholic affiliations wouldn’t have had any problem with his nomination.
The terms by themselves answer no questions.
Perhaps this link may:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiya