Catholic League: "Durbin's Dirty War on Roberts"

Yesterday, the Catholic League issued the following press release regarding the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court:

July 27, 2005

DURBIN’S DIRTY WAR ON ROBERTS

Today, Catholic League president William Donohue criticized Senator Dick Durbin’s attack on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts:

“After Senator John Cornyn laid to rest on Monday any concerns that Judge Roberts would allow his religious views to affect his rulings on the bench, we thought this matter was closed. We were wrong: Senator Durbin told a CNN correspondent yesterday that he ‘needs to look at everything, including the nominee’s faith….’ Now match this up with what Durbin has said previously:

· Speaking about questions regarding the religious beliefs of a nominee for the federal bench, Durbin said on April 15, 2005, “By the Constitution and by law, we cannot even ask that question, nor would I.”

· Yet on June 11, 2003, Durbin took umbrage at Circuit Court nominee William Pryor when Pryor merely noted the historical relationship between Christianity and the nation’s founding: “Do you not understand,” he said, that this “raises concerns of those who don’t happen to be Christian that you are asserting an agenda of your own, religious belief of your own inconsistent with separation of church and state?”

· After taking flack for his remark, Durbin said on July 23, 2003 that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee ought “to expunge references to religion from this point forward.” He added, hypocritically, “This is beneath the dignity of the committee.”

· The very next day, July 24, he reversed himself, saying, “If Senator [Jeff] Sessions is suggesting that anyone who has a religious belief should never be questioned about it, even if it has political implications, I just think [that] is wrong-headed.”

· On July 31, he reversed himself again, this time having the audacity to co-sponsor a resolution saying, “It shall not be in order to ask any question of the nominee relating to the religious affiliation of the nominee.”

“Durbin’s duplicity is mind-boggling. But of greater concern is his determination to force Roberts to submit to a religious test.”