Vice President Mike Pence called out Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) Wednesday night for her past anti-Christian attacks against President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees.
Pence reminded viewers of the way Harris’ counterpart on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), treated Chicago Judge Amy Coney Barrett in 2017, when Trump appointed her to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. At the time, the senator suggested Barrett, who is Catholic, could not rule objectively because “the dogma lives loudly within” her.
Trump has since nominated Barrett to the Supreme Court. Hearings for her appointment are expected to begin next week.
He then directed his comments to the Democratic vice presidential candidate, who in 2018 rebuked Judge Brian Buescher, who is also Catholic, for his membership in the long-established charity, the Knights of Columbus.
Both Harris and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) were particularly worried about the fact that Buescher is involved with a Catholic charity.
During the December hearing, Harris asked the nominee:
Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, and all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men. 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 went on to say that “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?
The senator also pressed Buescher to tell her whether he had “ever, in any way, assisted with or contributed to advocacy against women’s reproductive rights.” By “reproductive rights,” Harris, of course, means abortion.
Harris was also angered by the faith-based charity’s mainstream Christian understanding of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. She asked Buescher if he was “aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when [he] joined the organization.”
As Faithwire previously reported, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem poised to recycle the same anti-Christian attacks against Barrett they used in 2017.
“We particularly hope that we don’t see the kind of attacks on her Christian faith that we saw before,” Pence told Harris.
The progressive senator, for her part, pushed back against Pence’s comments, claiming to be offended because she is a “person of faith.”
“First of all, Joe Biden and I are both people of faith and it’s insulting to suggest that we would knock anyone for their faith,” Harris said. “And in fact, Joe, if elected, would be only the second practicing Catholic as president of the United States.”
It’s worth noting Biden has been denied communion before due to his support of abortion, a view diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church.