The following chart shows the religious affiliation of the general population compared to congress.
The Supreme Court looks a bit different.
Catholic 5 (Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy, Scalia)
Protestant 2 (Stevens, Souter)
Jewish 2 (Breyer, Ginsburg)
Does an elected official’s religion matter? Much was made behind the scenes about Mitt Romney being a Mormon. Recently, a disgruntled office-seeker lambasted one of our supervisors for supporting a pro-choice candidate and congressman. Both the disgruntled office-seeker and the supervisor are Catholic. Why should it matter?
Chris “Bitter Boy” Royse was just acting up because he came in second to Frank Principi in a fair and free election, even though he lost the election LAST year. Bitter and still stewing for Christmas. It could be a new song.
An individual’s religious preference shouldn’t matter – but it does as long as that individual is using it to try to influence policy. Haha. I’ll never see a politician with my preference -none of the above- make it into office.
No you probably won’t. I don’t think a person’s religion belongs in political office. But then again, you knew I would agree with you.
A good case in point would be Mr. Royse attempting to manipulate who Mr. Principi supports or doesn’t support. That has NO place in politics or the public arena.
I do find the Supreme Court distribution of religious affiliation strange in light of the house, the senate and the general population. What conclusions, if any, can we draw from the variance?
The BOCS resembles the Supreme Court in gender and a little less in religious affliation. To my knowledge there are no Jewish BOCS.
Abortion and illegal nannies seem to be litmus tests for the SC and its underlings. Don’t know how to relate the latter to religious preference though.
Me either. I hate to think of stacking the deck for that reason. shudder.
I have a feeling illegal nanny is more of a boobie trap to block nominations deemed unacceptable for other reasons.
Abortion might also be less important to lawmakers than they let on. It’s so sad that the Supreme Court decided to block the votes from being counted in Florida so that the world could endure the Bush Disaster. If it there had been one vote that was not on ideological purposes but rather based on legal or Constitutional grounds, it would have been easier to accept. But all five of the Justices that decided Bush should rule the United States were die hard partisans.
Actually abortion is a flagship issue for both the anti choice and pro choice people. There is probably no more idealogically important issue surrounding a Supreme Court appointment. Appointing the right justice is the big payback. Several appointees have been great disappointments to the party that nominated them. Once such person would be Sandra Day O’Connor.
One case actually became a verb. Bork. Clarence Thomas’s appointment was also extremely contentious. There have been many but those 2 stick out in my mind as particularly polarized.
I admit I have always taken Roe V. Wade for granted because I never knew a time when it was not the law of the land. Since I have become politically aware, it seems to me that the ideologues placed on the Supreme Court fuction much more to protect the interests and enforce the will of coporations and the rich and powerful. Abortion only comes up at two times: confirmations and elections.
My grouse will always be that many who are anti abortion also work equally hard against decent sex education and contraception. Our local delegate to the 13th district is a prime example.
It is easy to stir up anti abortion rhetoric and move armies on this subject. Both sides of the legal debate back each other into corners. Pro-choice people end up too medical and anti choice people end up diapering fertilized ova. Balance would be nice on this subject.