Since Judge Amy Coney Barrett was nominated by President Trump, I've been spending my time reading everything she's written, most particularly a law review article that she wrote co-authored back before she was a judge called Catholic judges and capital cases in which she talks about when a Catholic

judge must recuse herself when her religious views

conflict with the legal views. How does that impact her nomination? Will she follow what President Kennedy and Governor Cuomo and

Justice Brennan said when they said the Constitution must be placed before

my religion? She seems to have rejected that. We'll

consider these and other issues about the upcoming confirmation process on

the dirt shop.

President Trump's nomination of Amy Koney Barrett to the Supreme Court and his statement that he'd like his justices to serve 50 years raises some profound questions. We've already talked about the question of timing, was it right for the president to make the

nomination on the eve of the election after the Republicans prevented the nomination of Merrick

Garland who was equally well qualified

even to come before the Senate. Okay, that's one issue. But the other issue that

this particular nomination raises is the proper role of religion of a person's faith

in evaluating their qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court.

A couple of issues are very clear.

You cannot disqualify somebody just because they're a Catholic, a Jew, a Mormon,

and Muslim.

Period.

End of discussion.

The Constitution resolved that issue two hundred and something years ago.

The Constitution, not even the Bill of Rights, the text, said no religious test shall ever be required to hold office of trust

under the United States. That clearly applies to judges, justices, or any other job.

A president could not say to a potential nominee,

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