Religious Tests

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the fascinating men and women of America's founding generation. I want to share with you one of their stories.

Jonas Phillips was a penniless Jewish immigrant to America. He was an
indentured servant, a hard-working businessman, and an American patriot who served in the Philadelphia militia during the Revolutionary War. During the British occupation of New York City, he sneaked messages past the censors by writing notes in Yiddish, understanding that his adversaries wouldn't be able to understand or decipher it easily.

Years later, Phillips addressed a letter to George Washington and to other delegates at the Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia. He urged the delegates not to include a religious test in the Constitution as any kind of requirement for service for the Federal Government because no man, he wrote, should be ``deprived or abridged of any civil right, as a citizen, on account of his religious sentiments.'

Jonas Phillips wrote this letter for a reason. He wrote this because Pennsylvania, the State where he lived, required officials to swear that the New Testament was inspired by God. As a faithful Jewish person, Jonas Phillips could not do that.

``By the above law,'' he wrote, ``a Jew is deprived of holding any public office or place of government.''

Thankfully, Jonas Phillips' letter--Jonas Phillips' prayer-- ultimately would be answered. The Convention had voted unanimously to ban religious tests for Federal office. The language the Framers inserted into the Constitution was unequivocal upon this point. It said that ``no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.''

When the Founding Fathers wrote the word ``ever,'' they meant it. That word means something in the Constitution, and we need to protect it.

I feel the need to stress this point because of the conduct of some of my colleagues. Yesterday a Notre Dame law professor, Amy Coney Barrett, came before the Senate Judiciary Committee on which I serve.
She had been nominated as a prominent legal scholar and lawyer in this country to be nominated as a circuit judge. That is why she was before our committee.

Her nomination has been endorsed by prominent legal scholars from across the political spectrum and across the country, including Neal Katyal, President Obama's Acting Solicitor General in the previous administration. Nevertheless, at Ms. Barrett's confirmation hearing, a number of my colleagues insinuated that her Catholic faith would somehow prevent her from applying the law freely and fairly.

Here is an actual quote from that hearing: ``Dogma and law are two different things,'' remarked one of my colleagues. ``When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that is a concern.''

Another one of my colleagues even went so far as to ask Professor Barrett to confess her faith under oath in the committee. ``What is an orthodox Catholic?'' this committee member asked. ``Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?''

If these remarks had been some sort of bizarre, one-time aberration, I probably would have passed them over in silence. But I feel compelled to speak out because I wondered whether a pattern might be emerging--a pattern of hostility toward people of faith who come before this body.

Just a few months ago, another eminently qualified nominee, Russell Vought, appeared before the Budget Committee to be considered for a post in the Office of Management and Budget. One of my Senate colleagues used his time to question this nominee, not about management or about budgets but about the nominee's evangelical Christian beliefs.

``In your judgment,'' asked this Senator, ``do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?'' Mr. Vought explained to the committee that he is an evangelical Christian and that he adheres to the beliefs espoused by evangelical Christians. That apparently wasn't good enough for the questioner, who later stated that he would vote against Mr. Vought's nomination because he was not ``what this country is supposed to be about.''

This is disturbing. This is not what the country is supposed to be about--some sort of inquiry into one's religious beliefs as a condition precedent for holding public office in the U.S. Government. These strange questions have nothing to do with the nominee's competence, patriotism, or ability to serve among and for Americans of different faiths equally. In fact, they have little to do with this life at all.
Instead, they have to do with the afterlife--what comes after we die in this life. To my knowledge, the OMB and the Seventh Circuit have no jurisdiction over that.

This country is divided enough. Millions of Americans feel that Washington, DC, and the dominant culture despises them, and how can they not when they see their leaders sitting here grilling patriotic citizens about their faith like inquisitors. How can they not feel that their values are not welcome in this Chamber within this government?

Religious freedom is of deep concern to me as a Mormon. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have weathered extraordinary religious persecution. Much of it, especially initially, was sponsored by government actors.

The first Latter-day Saints were exiled from home to home. In 1838, the Governor of Missouri ordered that Mormons be driven from the land or ``exterminated.'' And yes, that is an actual quote.

Our first leader, Joseph Smith, once said: ``The civil magistrate should punish guilt but never suppress the freedom of souls.'' That, of course, was before he was martyred by a bigoted, angry mob.

Our country's ban on religious tests is a strong bulwark for religious freedom. As an original provision of the Constitution, this ban against religious tests predates even the Bill of Rights, and it applies not to just some religious adherents but to all of them equally.

The religious tests raised against Mr. Vought and Professor Barrett do not favor one sect of Christianity over another as was sadly common for much of our Nation's history. Rather, these particular inquiries tend to favor the secular, progressive creed clung to so confidently by many of our Nation's ruling elites. This creed has its own clerics, its own dogmas, its own orthodoxy, and as these nominees have discovered, it has its own heresies as well.

More and more, the adherents of this creed seek to use the power of government to steamroll favored groups, especially dissenters, from their own personal political dogmas. So they force evangelical caterers to bake cakes celebrating same-sex marriages, as is the case that is now before the Supreme Court of the United States, and they force nuns to purchase contraceptive coverage--nuns. They sue religious hospitals that will not perform abortions or sex reassignment surgeries for religious reasons. Yes, the secular progressive creed has proved that it is capable of triumphalism and intolerance, just as the creeds that have gone before it, not because its own adherents are uniquely wicked--to the contrary, because they are human.

There is a way out of this vicious cycle of religious intolerance, and it is a way that we have to find. That is for all of us to treat one another with civility and respect while jealously defending the rights of conscience for ourselves, our neighbors, and all of our fellow citizens--for Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and everyone else.

This body can do its part by supporting legislation like the First Amendment Defense Act and the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act, which would protect the people who have conscious objections to recent cultural changes and make sure they are protected against one of the most brutal forms of discrimination that can be brought to bear; that is, the type of discrimination brought about by governments against individuals.

At a minimum, this body can do its part by respecting the constitutional rights of citizens who come before it. Lest we forget, we work for them, not the other way around. I trust my colleagues-- Republicans, Democrats, and Independents--will take this to heart because religious freedom puts all Americans on the same footing. It helps men and women stand upright, honest before the law and before God.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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