What a Kerry Supreme Court Would Mean!

John Kerry purports to be a practicing Catholic, but when it comes to deciding what’s right and wrong for our country, he checks his Catholicism at the door to the Senate. He’s made clear that he will not rely on his Catholic faith as President: "I don't take my Catholic beliefs, my article of faith," he says, "and legislate it on a Protestant, on a Jew, or an atheist, who doesn't share it." Kerry’s record as a Senator demonstrates his hostility – if not utter contempt – for laws that reflect the religious and moral values that we Catholics hold dear.

As faithful Catholic lawyers, we believe that the election of John Kerry as President would be a severe setback for the core tenets of faith held by practicing Catholics. A Kerry presidency would have dire consequences for the future of the Supreme Court and of our country. His proven track record of opposition to legislation designed to protect the unborn, foster traditional marriage, and protect educational choice demonstrates the kind of President John Kerry would be. Equally important, when combined with his staunch opposition to President Bush’s judicial nominees, John Kerry’s Senate record shows that he would fill the Supreme Court and lower federal courts with liberal judicial activists who would run roughshod over core matters of Catholic faith and laws that reflect fundamental Catholic values. A Kerry presidency would mean a radical agenda in many areas:

Abortion regulation: John Kerry has made clear that he would apply a pro-abortion litmus test for his Supreme Court appointments. Justices appointed by John Kerry would mandate a regime of abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy. They would invalidate laws ensuring parental consent, parental notification, and informed consent, and would block even the most modest measures to prevent atrocities like partial-birth abortion.

Traditional marriage: John Kerry opposed the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage under federal law a union of a man and a woman and protects States from having to recognize the judge-made homosexual marriage laws of other states, like those in Massachusetts. John Kerry also opposes a federal Marriage Amendment. His Justices would continue to undermine the role of traditional marriage in their judicial decisions.

Boy Scouts: Justices appointed by John Kerry would be hostile to the religiously-based practices and viewpoint of groups like the Boy Scouts, which have been under attack for not allowing homosexuals to serve as scoutmasters.

School choice: John Kerry has voted to oppose federal laws which protect school choice. He opposes laws that allow all students – especially poor kids stuck in the worst public schools – to obtain funds to attend private schools, including religious schools. His Supreme Court Justices might well turn back the clock on the hard fought recent victories for school choice.

The issues presented in each of these areas may very well come before the Supreme Court in the next Presidential term.

It is an unfortunate fact of our government that the courts have the power to wreak havoc on the fabric of American life. Judges today regularly wade into some of the most controversial social issues of our day, often attacking the very foundation of Catholic teachings on core issues of family, preservation of life, and individual responsibility. The Supreme Court has, in recent years, issued controversial rulings on issues such as partial birth abortion, educational choice, homosexual sodomy, and the role of religion in this country’s public life – in many cases invalidating laws supported by the majority of Americans. With many of our Supreme Court Justices in their 70s and 80s, the next President may have the opportunity to appoint as many as 2 or 3 of the 9 active Justices on the Court. Those appointments could have a dramatic impact on the direction of the country for years to come.

As President, John Kerry would dramatically reshape the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts in his image and likeness. Kerry’s record demonstrates that his choices for these critical positions would be far outside the mainstream of American political and jurisprudential thought and would be hostile to the core beliefs of any faithful Catholic. On the campaign trail, he has repeatedly labeled Justices Scalia and Thomas, both devout Catholics who oppose using the Constitution to impose counter-cultural values on the American people, as far outside the mainstream. Kerry recently noted that his vote to confirm Justice Scalia was “a mistake.”

Kerry has a proven record of hostility to judges who share the beliefs that form the core of the Church’s teachings on life, family, and social issues. With the full support of Senators Kerry and Edwards, Senate Democrats have used unprecedented filibusters to prevent the Senate from holding a vote on many of President Bush’s judicial nominees – not because they were unqualified but because of liberal concerns that their judicial philosophy would yield results that conform too closely to the core teachings of Catholic doctrine. In effect, to paraphrase one commentator, Senate Democrats have adopted a viewpoint test for judicial office that has the effect of screening out all nominees who are faithful to the Church’s teaching.

John Kerry has opposed several Catholic nominees for federal judgeships – like Susan Neilson and Henry Saad of Michigan, Carolyn Kuhl of California, and William Pryor of Alabama – voting to prevent their nominations from even being allowed a final “up or down” vote on the floor of the Senate. During his Senate confirmation hearings, William Pryor, a devout Catholic with a distinguished record of public service as Attorney General of Alabama, faced hostile questioning regarding his faith from Kerry’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate, with one Senate Democrat going so far as to grill Pryor on his decision to reschedule a Disney World vacation with his young family in order to avoid “Gay Day.” John Kerry did nothing to come to Pryor’s aid, but instead joined his Democratic colleagues in blocking Judge Pryor.

When viewed in light of his obstruction of judges reflective of traditional Catholic values, Kerry’s chance to reshape the Supreme Court if elected President should trouble most Catholics. Kerry would appoint judges that would thwart democratic attempts to implement the will of the nation, in favor of the far left secularists who promote late term abortion, homosexual marriage, and the prohibition of all religion in public life. In light of the many cases decided 5-4 at the Supreme Court, and the increasing use of litigation to decide today’s most pressing social issues, this election is too important for Catholics to ignore.

John Kerry’s record shows hostility to commonly held Catholic values in a number of areas:

The election of John Kerry would be a dark day for the pro-life movement. As a United States Senator, John Kerry has been an ardent supporter of abortion on demand and opponent of measures designed to protect the unborn:

Early in his career, he explained that he would oppose any legislative attempt to restrict abortion and would vote against “any restrictions on age, consent, funding restrictions, or any law to limit access to abortion.”

Despite his flip flops on other matters, he has lived up to that promise, receiving a 0% rating from the National Right to Life Committee in recent sessions of Congress.

His pro-abortion record is so strong that he is the first presidential candidate (including Bill Clinton and Al Gore) ever to be endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which saw his election as “crucial to preserving access to abortion.”

He has repeatedly voted against a federal ban on partial birth abortion, has voted dozens of times to repeal the existing ban on the use of federal funds to pay for abortions in the United States, and has opposed even minimal restrictions on abortion, such as parental consent laws.

He supports human cloning. When the Senate considered voting on a ban on human cloning supported by President Bush, the obstruction tactics of John Kerry and other supporters of abortion rights prevented even a final vote on the ban from taking place.

Similarly, he favors the creation and destruction of human embryos – the most defenseless of human life – for embryonic stem cell research. While President Bush has prohibited federal funding for the continuing destruction of embryos in this research, John Kerry would revoke the President's ban and provide additional federal tax dollars for research that would destroy further human life.

John Kerry has publicly stated that he will ignore the papal encyclical entitled, “The Gospel of Life,” in which Pope John Paul II restated the immorality of abortion and called on Catholic lawmakers to act to protect the unborn. He would require the same unyielding support for abortion rights from his judicial nominees. He has pledged that if he is elected president he would nominate to the Supreme Court only judges who support Roe v. Wade. His Senate record shows he means business in promoting abortion.

John Kerry’s support for Supreme Court appointments that share his view on abortion is especially critical now. This summer, federal courts in New York, San Francisco, and Nebraska struck down the federal ban on partial birth abortion that passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress and was signed into law by President Bush in November 2003. One judge reasoned that partial birth abortion, in which an unborn child is partially delivered outside of the mother only to have its skull crushed and the contents of its head vacuumed out, was a "gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized," procedure that caused horrific pain to the unborn child. He concluded, however, that he was required to permit the abortion method as a result of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision issued in 2000. In that decision, Stenberg v. Carhart, five Justices held that Nebraska’s attempt to end partial birth abortions was prohibited by the Constitution. Applying this decision to the current federal ban, lower court judges have concluded that the American people are powerless to prevent this form of infanticide.

Vowing to go the extra mile to protect the unborn, the Bush Administration is appealing those decisions, and the cases will likely – if President Bush is re-elected – end up in the Supreme Court. The election of John Kerry would not only mean abandonment of the federal law by the Kerry Administration, but the appointment of more pro-Roe Justices who would make sure this horrific method of killing partially-born babies goes unchecked.

The vote of a single Supreme Court Justice stands in the way of decent Americans protecting human life from this barbarous method of abortion. But John Kerry supports the culture of death evident in the Stenberg decision, even panders to it. As he has indicated, his Supreme Court appointments would follow his lead.

America is facing a grave threat to marriage and the family. Under the banner of “non-discrimination,” homosexual activists are successfully challenging the very definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. But it has been the courts – state and federal – that are the true engines of undermining this sacred, and fundamental, social institution. The fundamental shift in law began only last year, when a closely divided Supreme Court created a constitutionally protected right to homosexual sodomy. That decision, which relied heavily on the same principles invoked by the Court in reaffirming the constitutional right to abortion, has led to the rapid erosion of marriage laws throughout the country.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas held that Texas could not prohibit homosexual sodomy, overruling a longstanding decision which upheld the power of the states to prohibit sodomy. The Court held that sodomy and other “sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle” were constitutionally protected liberty interests under the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, reasoning that “persons in a homosexual relationship” have the same constitutional liberty “relating to marriage, procreation . . . [and] family relationships” that heterosexuals do.

Earlier this year, the highest court in John Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts extended the rule of Lawrence v. Texas to conclude that homosexuals had a constitutionally protected right to same-sex marriage. In Goodridge v. Dept. of Health, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the Massachusetts legislature to change the law to accommodate homosexual marriage. Only this summer, courts in the State of Washington, following the reasoning of the Massachusetts court, struck down state laws that defined marriage to include only opposite-sex marriage.

The proliferation of judicial decisions recognizing gay marriage in a minority of states presents a problem for residents of other states that wish to preserve and protect traditional marriage. Under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution, there is a significant risk that such marriages would have to be recognized in other states, whether the people of those states want to or not. So if one state allows homosexual marriage, all states would have to recognize that marriage.

A measure passed by Congress and signed into law in 1996, however, seeks to protect the rights of States to define marriage however they choose. The federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) allows the residents of Wisconsin or Ohio, for instance, to define marriage in its traditional sense and to refuse to recognize the homosexual marriages mandated by judges in Massachusetts or Washington State. Remarkably, John Kerry was one of only 14 Senators to vote against DOMA. Had his view prevailed, States would be prevented from protecting traditional marriage and from refusing to recognize gay marriages imposed by the courts of other states.

Despite his public statements that he does not support gay marriage, Kerry’s support of the homosexual agenda could not be clearer. In addition to opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, John Kerry has praised his state Supreme Court’s affirmation of homosexual marriage. He supports full “spousal” benefits for homosexual partners of federal employees. He was “outraged” with the Vatican for reminding Catholic citizens and elected officials of their moral obligation to resist the legalization of gay marriage. And he opposes a federal marriage amendment, supported by President Bush, which would define marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

The Courts will continue to play a major role in either extending or resisting the expansion of homosexual rights. In light of Goodridge and Lawrence, the question of homosexual marriage is likely to be put before the U.S. Supreme Court during the next Presidential term. Several constitutional challenges to DOMA by homosexual activists are already making their way through the federal courts. How those issues are decided will strike at the heart of the American family. Given his track record in the Senate, it is clear that John Kerry can’t be trusted with appointing judges who understand the limited role of the courts in interpreting the constitution. His judges would do little more than continue the trend of judicial erosion of the traditional family structure.

During the four years since the Supreme Court, by a bare majority of one, decided that the Boy Scouts could exclude homosexual activists as troop leaders, efforts have increased to stigmatize the Boy Scouts and to cut off funding of the Scouts and even access to public parks and other public accommodations that the Boy Scouts use as campgrounds. The American Bar Association went so far, in August, to consider a proposed ethics change to bar judges from belonging to any organization, including the Scouts, which “discriminates” against gays.

As legal challenges arise to the provision to the Scouts of various forms of aid, including access to public properties, it will be the federal judges who will decide how the Boy Scouts are treated. A single Kerry appointment to the Supreme Court would shift the balance on the Court, upsetting the earlier decision in favor of the Scouts and calling into question the First Amendment (freedom of association) rights of the Scouts and other religiously oriented organizations, such as the Knights of Columbus, which are dear to Catholics.

The election of John Kerry would be a dark day for children trapped in failing schools. If John Kerry were elected President, he would do everything within his power to ensure that most parents in the United States are deprived of any realistic opportunity to choose where and what their children are taught. He would thus wrest one of the most critical choices parents can make in their children’s upbringing—how they will be educated—away from them and condemn America’s school children to the outmoded trappings of a one-size-fits-all, and all too often anti-religion, education.

As a United States Senator, John Kerry has been a vocal opponent of school choice. And, as a presidential candidate, he has vowed to take this opposition to the Oval Office.

In 1996, Kerry voted four times against giving low-income D.C. children the option of school choice.

In 2003, Kerry grossly mischaracterized “school choice” as favoring a chosen few at the expense of the vast majority of children in public schools. Thus, Kerry said, “we have to guarantee that vouchers are not made into an argument that somehow there’s a morality in taking care of kids, 50 of them, and abandoning 4,000 in the school behind them. I refuse to accept that.” (Sen. John Kerry, Congressional Black Caucus Institute Debate, 9/9/03).

Last November, Kerry further attempted to disparage proponents of school choice by accusing them of “trying in effect to destroy inner city schools” and falsely representing vouchers as “a bad choice that would leave even more children behind.” (Sen. John Kerry, Remarks in Council Bluffs, IA, 11/25/03).

In no uncertain terms, Kerry has embraced the position that his votes already made clear: “I have never supported vouchers. I will never support them. And if it ever comes to my desk, I’ll veto vouchers or voucher-like programs the day that bill arrives.” (Sen. John Kerry, Remarks in Council Bluffs, IA, 11/25/03).

John Kerry has thus promised that, if he is elected President, he would veto any and all voucher or voucher-like school choice bills the day they arrive.

Beyond vetoing a federal pro-voucher bill with his own pen, John Kerry could effectively veto any State attempts to enact their own voucher or school choice initiatives by nominating Supreme Court Justices who share his views on the matter. Given his voting record as a Senator and his unwavering statements as a presidential candidate, we have no doubt that John Kerry would expect the same anti-school choice commitment and fervor from his judicial nominees on which he prides himself.

The appointment of two or three, or even a single, anti-religion and anti-school choice Justice could not come at a worse time. The first state school choice initiative to reach the Supreme Court—Ohio’s Pilot Scholarship Program reviewed in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris in 2002—survived an Establishment Clause challenge by the margin of a single vote. Although this 5-4 decision was clearly a welcome step in the right direction, it is only the first step—and could easily be reversed, eroded, or distinguished beyond recognition by the Supreme Court’s review of the next school choice initiative to reach its courtroom.

Indeed, the Justice who offered the well recognized swing vote in Zelman in favor of upholding Ohio’s program, Justice O’Connor, did so with a host of fact-specific qualifications that undoubtedly sowed the seeds for a future Supreme Court, one with John Kerry-appointed Justices, to cast the Zelman decision aside as a one-time-only approval of Ohio’s specific program. Justice O’Connor expressly took comfort in understanding that the Court’s decision was limited to “the realities of the Cleveland educational system,” and she continued to endorse a governing standard that permits federal courts to exercise broad and virtually boundless discretion in determining whether they believe any program or activity offends their notion of what is the proper role for religion.

The simple reality is that the Supreme Court’s views on school choice are not settled. Court approval of school choice programs is in its infancy and, with the addition of a single John Kerry Justice hostile to school choice, the law could change quickly and decisively. The educational future of America’s children hangs in the balance, and there is no mistaking what that future will look like if John Kerry were to become President. He would override any decision by Congress to support school choice at the federal level, and he would appoint Justices who would quash any efforts to do so at the state and local levels. With all of the challenges facing our schools in America today, the last thing that federal, state, and local legislators should have to worry about is an extra-constitutional and anti-religion roadblock being placed in the way of educating children. John Kerry has ensured, and would continue to ensure, that those roadblocks become a permanent barrier between the needs of America’s children and the promise of school choice.

The election of John Kerry would have a profound and lasting impact on the values that American Catholics hold dear. Given the high stakes, we urge you to carefully consider his record as you enter the voting booth in November.

Kerry must be an athiest. He'll have to answer for his actions on judgment day. I'm a protestant but I was very happy to see the Catholic Church say if you vote certain ways (i.e. pro-choice) then you can not partake communion. I don't believe you can check your faith at the door. One thing he forgot if you lead people to sin, you're as guilty as the person who commits the sin. I keep hoping more denominations will step to the plate as the Catholic church did. The church should hold their members accountable for how they vote. I've got a pretty good idea where Kerry may end up. His pro-choice stance has killed as many as Hitler's death camps in WWII.

"Oyez, oyez! All rise for the Honorable Chief Justice... Hillary Rodham Clinton!"

"...a constitutionally protected right to homosexual sodomy..."

I tend to think most people agree that what two people do in the privacy of their own home is not the business of the State. The main issue with gay unions is government sanction and tacit approval of those unions. (Especially, when there is no sound scientific evidence that homosexuality is any more than a predisposition akin to a craving for liquor.)

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