Return to the Table of Contents
HARRIS: Viewing Catholics As Unqualified to Be Federal Judges
Harris believes that practicing Catholics who take seriously the doctrines of their faith are fundamentally unfit to serve as federal judges, as evidenced by the way she treated Nebraska District Judge nominee Brian Buescher during his November 2018 Senate confirmation hearing. Harris emphasized the significance of Buescher’s 25-year association with the Knights of Columbus (KOC), a charity that embraces Catholic doctrines stipulating that abortion is “a crime against human life.” In a written question to Buescher, Harris asked: “In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus, described abortion as ‘a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.’ Mr. Anderson later said ‘abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.’ Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?”
As columnist Kevin D. Williamson subsequently noted in the New York Post: “[T]he Constitution explicitly forbids imposing any religious test for public office, which is what [Senator Harris] here propose[s] to do for the federal judiciary. The second and related issue is that it is not the Knights of Columbus that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, but the Catholic Church. If a KOC member is ineligible to serve on the federal bench because of the beliefs of that organization, then every Catholic in the United States — and the world, for that matter, all 1.2 billion of them — is ineligible for similar office, since they belong to a much larger and much more prominent organization that is the source of those ‘extreme positions.’”
HARRIS: Health Insurers Must Cover Contraception & Sterilization
Harris has long supported an Obama-era healthcare regulation dating back to August 1, 2011 – nearly 17 months after the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was signed into law – when then-Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius announced a new mandate that required all Obamacare-compliant insurance plans to cover at least one form of female birth control, including sterilization and abortifacients. This mandate was unacceptable to many individuals and businesses whose moral or religious beliefs did not permit them to fund or participate in such insurance plans. Such was the case with Hobby Lobby, an arts-and-crafts store chain owned by devout Christians openly dedicated to “honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.” Thus, Hobby Lobby asked HHS if, because of its religious convictions, it could be exempt from the Obamacare mandate.
As the attorney general of California, Harris in 2014 filed an amicus brief exhorting the Supreme Court to refuse Hobby Lobby’s request. Asserting that “every American deserves access to quality, comprehensive healthcare,” she argued that “a woman’s access to essential services, including contraception, should not be restricted because of the religious views of her employer—particularly when the right to these services is protected under federal law.” The Supreme Court eventually sided with Hobby Lobby and struck down the Obamacare mandate in 2014.
HARRIS: Religious Liberty & The Equality Act
The Equality Act was designed to force employers and workers to either accept leftwing dogma regarding marriage, sexuality, and gender, or lose their businesses and jobs. A widely publicized example of what the Equality Act sought to achieve involved Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who declined to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding and was subsequently sued by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC) for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. As the Alliance Defending Freedom – a Christian law firm “committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, marriage and family, parental rights, and the sanctity of life” — explains: “In an exchange lasting about 30 seconds, Phillips politely declined, explaining that he would gladly make them any other type of baked item they wanted, but that he could not design a cake promoting a same-sex ceremony because of his faith.”
HARRIS: Religious Liberty & The “Do No Harm” Act
In February 2019, Harris introduced the Do No Harm Act in the U.S. Senate, to counter the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 and similar legislation that existed at the state level in about 20 U.S. states. As Kenneth Craycraft writes in First Things: “The purpose of RFRA was to … carve out exemptions from generally applicable laws for some religious practices that are fundamental to religious belief. For example, a RFRA law might protect a church from another law that prohibits consideration of sexual orientation for employment, promotion, or retention. Or it might protect a physician who participates in public health reimbursement programs from a law requiring such physicians to perform a broad scope of so-called healthcare services, such as abortion.”
Sen. Harris stated that the Do No Harm Act’s overriding objective was to prevent RFRA laws from “being used to deny” such things as “healthcare access,… coverage or services to which persons are otherwise legally entitled.”
In making her case for the Do No Harm Act, Harris defined “religious freedom” very narrowly as “the freedom to worship,” as guaranteed by the First Amendment. But as Kenneth Craycraft points out:
“In Harris’s tendentious reading, ‘free exercise’ of religion means ‘freedom to worship,’ and nothing more. If the doors of the church are not locked and guarded, or if you are not prevented from praying in your home, you have the full range of ‘the First Amendment guarantee,’ and you are guaranteed nothing more.… Free exercise of religion equals private prayer or conviction, and nothing else.”
BIDEN: Religious Liberty & The Equality Act
In an address to the Human Rights Campaign in June 2019, Joe Biden said, “I promise you, if I’m elected president it [passage of the Equality Act] will be the first thing I ask to be done.” “This is our soul, dammit, this is who we have to be,” Biden expanded. “… This is our real moral obligation.”
In late October 2020, Biden again pledged: “I will make enactment of the Equality Act a top legislative priority during my first 100 days — a priority that Donald Trump opposes.”
BIDEN: Rejecting the Right to Refuse Service Based on Moral Objections
On June 30, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled on 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, a case that centered around the question of whether creative businesses had a right to refuse to serve LGBTQ+ customers because of a business owner’s First Amendment free-speech rights. In its 6-3 decision, the Court concluded that an evangelical Christian businesswoman had a right to post a notice that said, “no [wedding websites] will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages.”
President Biden criticized the decision in a statement saying that “no person should face discrimination simply because of who they are or who they love.” “The Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis undermines that basic truth,” he added, “and painfully it comes during Pride month when millions of Americans across the country join together to celebrate the contributions, resilience, and strength of the LGBTQI+ community.”