Hey, man, you can believe what you want, but don’t impose your religious beliefs on other people.
It's is one of the more common lines of argument in American culture and politics.
It’s a vague assertion, insofar as “imposing one’s beliefs” is not terribly well defined. Nevertheless, it taps into a fundamental principle of religious pluralism and tolerance, which is foundational to the United States.
But I'm afraid you are going to impose your beliefs on me is often used as a cover story for people who don’t want to come out and simply say, “I find your religiously infused way of life gross.”
So naturally, as Amy Coney Barrett has emerged as the likely replacement to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and as liberals swear up and down that they have no problem with Catholics who follow the church’s teachings on sexuality and life, you’re hearing this line.
This is a common charge lobbed at Barrett and other religious conservatives. You’ll see it a lot more if she’s actually nominated on Saturday.
But there’s no evidence that Barrett goes around "imposing her religion." Not one of Barrett’s critics has ever pointed to an example in her career as a law clerk or an appellate judge in which she ignored precedent, rules, law, or the Constitution in favor of her personal beliefs. Nobody could find anything in her writing or her teaching career to indicate she would.
The liberal group that tried to show Barrett would impose her beliefs had to misrepresent the argument she made in a co-authored article.
The Alliance for Justice falsely claimed that “Barrett has asserted that judges should not follow the law or the Constitution when it conflicts with their personal religious beliefs. In fact, Barrett has said that judges should be free to put their personal views ahead of their judicial oath to faithfully follow the law."
To “prove” this, it pointed to a law review article in which Barrett argued the exact opposite: that a Catholic judge who felt she could not impose a death penalty when the law called for it was required to recuse herself rather than interject her own morality in place of the law.
The Politico article that tried to prove she would was based on a false claim, which has since been corrected, that a Christian group Barrett is close to requires private oaths from its members.
So given this absence of evidence, why do we keep seeing the charge that Barrett will impose her views?
One possibility is that some liberals can’t imagine anything else. If something is wrong, it should be banned, and if something is good, it should be either mandated or made into a constitutional right. That’s the mindset behind Roe v. Wade and the court’s past prohibitions on the death penalty.
The other possibility is that this is just a slur — an anti-Catholic (or simply anti-religious) dog whistle. To say she “will impose her beliefs” is basically saying, as California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said, that “the dogma lives loudly within” her. That is, being Catholic is OK, but being SO Catholic is kinda creepy.
Many people are perturbed out by folks who let religious teachings dramatically influence their personal lives. Who has SEVEN children?
That may be what Feinstein was thinking of when she caught herself asking Barrett why many Democrats had "this very uncomfortable feeling” before turning her question in another direction.
It’s probably fair to call this bigotry. Feinstein and Barrett's other critics look at the judge's faith and lifestyle and say that because you live your life that way, I find you unacceptable.
The objection, it turns out, isn’t about someone imposing her beliefs on other people. It’s about a woman who imposes her beliefs on herself.
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