No one is more hypocritical than Republicans when it becomes religion and politics. They milk the religious demographic for all the grievance, all the conservative anger they can muster, and Sen. Marco Rubio is the perfect example.
During Amy Coney Barrett's horrific confirmation hearings, held while Ruth Bader Ginsberg's body hadn't even settled into her grave, Republicans immediately started whining and cawing that Democrats would attack their latest Supreme Court pick over her extremist radical Catholic views.
As we know, Barrett is a devout Catholic, alumna of Notre Dame and member of a small, conservative faith group called the People of Praise.
In an attempt to offset legitimate questions about how this might influence her rulings, the usual suspects began their chants of religious oppression.
"This pattern and practice of religious bigotry — because that's what it is, when you tell somebody they are too Catholic to be on the bench, when you say they will be a Catholic judge, not an American judge — that is bigotry," said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. "The practice of bigotry from members of this committee must stop and I would expect that it be renounced."
Sens. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. and John Kennedy, R-La. echoed those comments with statements of their own — and in Kennedy's telling, the nominee herself had been viciously maligned.
"I know it must hurt for someone of deep Christian faith like yourself to be called a religious bigot and to have it implied that because you are a devout Christian that you're somehow unfit for public service," Kennedy said.
Senator Marco Rubio issued this statement, "Sadly, I expect my Democratic colleagues and the radical left to do all they can to assassinate her character and once again make an issue of her faith during her confirmation process."
Now as we head into these Georgia Senate runoffs, guess who is attacking Raphael Warnock's faith?
You guessed it.
As Esquire's jack Holmes writes:
Never mind that what Warnock is saying appears to be an adaptation of the Sermon on the Mount delivered by Jesus Christ, a guy who never was big on militarism. And never mind that Warnock can often be found speaking from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, once home to Martin Luther King, Jr., who himself said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Holmes continues,
Is it suddenly acceptable whenever the opportunity arises to paint a Democrat in an important Senate race as a Jeremiah Wright figure? Is it a blatant bad-faith double standard to be used as a shield for Republicans, and a sword against Democrats? Do the rules go out the window if you're trying to win a Senate majority through two candidates, one who's playing footsie with QAnon and the other who engaged in racist mocking of the vice president-elect's name to get a rise out of a rally crowd?
The state of the GOP is despicable and Marco Rubio embodies that decay.
Bill Barr routinely chooses his religious views over the US Constitution every chance he opens his mouth.
Put an end to it and send money to help Warnock and Ossoff win the Georgia runoff.
You can contribute to Warnock and or Ossoff by clicking on this Blue America page at ACTBlue.
