Thread by @DouthatNYT

I want to express a very mild disagreement with this piece from @DavidAFrench defending Amy Coney Barrett against bigoted attacks:
nationalreview.com/2018/07/amy-co…

French is right, of course, to see bigotry at work in the way some progressive critics write about Barrett's faith. But if we're being honest it's that faith and not *just* her impressive credentials and judicial philosophy that makes her attractive to many conservatives.

A big Q for conservative nominees has always been their willingness to row against the tide of elite culture on "arc of history"/"sexual modernity" issues. This is an issue of temperament and mindset, not just philosophy and resume. And religious commitment looms large there.

For example: I think John Roberts might vote to overturn Roe because of my reading of his record (on other precedents and Obergefell, notably). But I also think that bc he's a Catholic w/two adopted kids whose wife was affiliated w/ Feminists for Life. The personal is judicial.

In the same way, the fact that Barrett is a Catholic mom of seven tells you something -- not something dispositive, but something meaningful -- about where she's coming from and how she might rule. That's just reality.

And if religious conservatives notice this -- and they do -- they/we can't expect progressives not to notice. Which doesn't license bigotry or ignorance or hystera. But ... you can't expect them not to notice.

Nor is this a new phenomenon; it's more of a recurrence. Here's a famous ruling, for instance, in which only one justice dissented from the elite view of Science and Progress and the arc of history. He was also the only devout Catholic on the court.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._B…

Again, religion mattering doesn't license bigotry. But religion matters. And in a society polarized in part between the religious and the irreligious, everybody knows it. /finis