WASHINGTON (ABP) — In a rare prime-time news conference April 28, President Bush disagreed with the rhetoric of some religious conservatives who have accused Senate Democrats of blocking judicial nominees who are “people of faith.”
Speaking to journalists in the White House's ornate East Room, Bush responded to a reporter's question about an April 24 broadcast, sponsored by two religious conservative groups, in which speakers denounced Democrats for allegedly using a “religious litmus test” in blocking a handful of Bush's most controversial nominees to the federal bench. Democrats have used a Senate procedural rule, known as the “filibuster,” to deny votes to 10 of Bush's 215 nominees.
When called on at the press conference, NBC News reporter David Gregory asked about one of the organizations' leaders. “Mr. President, recently the head of the Family Research Council said that judicial filibusters are an attack against people of faith. And I wonder whether you believe that, in fact, that is what is [motivating] Democrats who oppose your judicial choices?”
Bush responded, “I think people are opposing my nominees because they don't like the judicial philosophy of the people I've nominated.” Pressed further by Gregory on the appropriateness of the conservative leaders' language, Bush said, “I just don't agree with it.”
Nonetheless, he did call for all his judicial nominees to get “an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate.”
In an April 29 statement, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins sidestepped the criticism. “We have never said that Democrats aren't people of faith,” he said. “In fact, we have specifically stated that our single purpose on this issue is to obtain an up-or-down vote on President Bush's judicial nominees.”
Perkins blamed Senate Democrats — and specifically New York Sen. Charles Schumer — for making religious belief an issue in the first place for judicial nominees. “We did not make this issue about religion,” he said. Perkins specifically referred to a 2003 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on then-Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, one of the filibustered Bush nominees to a federal appeals court.
Schumer and several other Democrats on the committee questioned some of Pryor's previously stated views on the separation of church and state, which have been targets of criticism from many civil-liberties groups. Perkins said opposing Pryor on those grounds — and opposing other judicial nominees because of what Democrats consider extremist views on other issues — was tantamount to a religious litmus test.
“The way that people choose or choose not to worship is their own decision,” Perkins said. “But for nominees to be held back from opportunity because they have chosen a faith that might advise against abortion, same-sex 'marriage' and similar issues is deplorable.”
NBC News' Gregory also asked Bush a question about the wider role of religious debates in the nation's political life. “I view religion as a personal matter,” Bush responded. “I think a person ought to be judged on how he or she lives his life or lives her life. And that's how I've tried to live my life, through example. Faith-based is an important part of my life, individually, but I don't … ascribe a person's opposing my nominations to an issue of faith.”
He continued: “The great thing about America, David, is that you should be allowed to worship any way you want. And if you choose not to worship, you're equally as patriotic as somebody who does worship. And if you choose to worship, you're equally American if you're a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim. That's the wonderful thing about our country. And that's the way it should be.”