Lindsey Graham today asked what in another era would have been considered a question worthy of scorn and instant rebuke. The Republican U.S. senator asked a nominee for the Supreme Court, “What is your faith?”
Ketanji Brown Jackson answered “Protestant.”
OK, why should Sen. Graham have been slapped down? Because of Article VI in the U.S. Constitution, which reads, in part: ” … no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
I watched Graham ask the question today in real time. I was troubled at the moment I heard it. Then it dawned on me. The Constitution disallows any sort of religious test for “any Office or public Trust.”
That includes the United States Supreme Court!
We witnessed today a remarkably ignorant performance by a member of the U.S. Senate who, had he understood the Constitution he took an oath to “protect and defend,” never would have asked a Supreme Court nominee a question that clearly violates the rules set down by the nation’s governing document.
Despicable.