Trump's Supreme Court Pick Is Payoff to the Religious Right
Judge Neil Gorsuch is enthusiastically pro-life and conservative on all other issues near and dear to evangelicals who held their noses and who elected a morally flawed president.
JAY MICHAELSON
01.31.17 8:15 PM ET
Judge Neil Gorsuch, Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, is Trump’s payback to the Christian Right.
Gorsuch is the clearest social conservative of the SCOTUS finalists. He has written several books opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide, describing a sincere and consistent pro-life philosophy. (He later stated that those were his personal beliefs, separate from his role as a judge.) He wrote a concurrence in the Tenth Circuit Hobby Lobby case that was extremely favorable to the corporation. He has been likewise supportive other cases affirming wide-ranging religious exemptions to civil rights laws.
In short, Gorsuch is the dream candidate of the Christian Right—consider this love letter from the Christian Right group Alliance Defending Freedom—which, after all, is the constituency that put Trump over the top on November 8. Post-election analyses have focused on the “white working class,” but it’s evangelicals who held their noses, thought of the Supreme Court, and voted for Trump. Now they are being rewarded.
Democrats will undoubtedly oppose Gorsuch; in their view, he’s being nominated for a seat that was President Obama’s to choose and Judge Merrick Garland’s to fill. But their opposition will have to be principled, not personal. There is no question that he is qualified (Harvard, Oxford, PhD), a gifted writer, and a bit of a prodigy. Only 49 years old, he is the youngest Supreme Court nominee since Justice Thomas. And as Trump said while introducing him, Gorsuch was approved unanimously for his current position.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/31/trump-s-supreme-court-pick-is-payoff-to-the-religious-right.html
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