"No religious test shall be required to hold an office of the United States"

except for the test to see whether you actually believe the tenets of your religion, that is. And you're Catholic. Or conservative Evangelical. Or Orthodox Jew. Or even, yes, devoutly Muslim.

Yeah, there's no religious test, but if you believe abortion is wrong, you can't be a judge.

It has nothing to do with religion, see?

It's interesting if you replace christian with black, and religious with race, how opposed to their argument the left would be :

Democrats continued to filibuster against judges they deemed to be too black for consideration.
"The Republicans are trying to set up a government centered around race, and being black in particular" said one leading Democrat.
Bill Frist caused an uproad over the weekend when he met with the NAACP to speak out against the Democrats obstruction of judges who are black.
"The Republicans have definitely made this a case of blacks versus the Democrats" said another democrat.

Bigotry clear and simple. When can we start calling the Dems the party of hate and calling them out everytime they make a hint at an anti-religious comment.

So what drives the democrats ideological bus and what would cause them to openly antagonize people of faith? Is it that they've become the abortion party? Its the only thing they've got. Every plank in their platform is informed by this issue. They will do anything to own this position up to and including self-destruction. Good riddance.

This is the sort of thing that looks smart in the bicoastal echo chamber (and I include much of the blogosphere in this) but causes a headfirst collision with reality the next election day.

"So what drives the democrats ideological bus and what would cause them to openly antagonize people of faith? "

You seem to forget that the Democrats are "people of faith" as well. As is about 90% of the country, regardless of their politics.

Well, 90 percent of Americans profess to having some sort of faith. That doesn't mean that they actually do and more than if 90 percent of Americans professed to being a member of The Emperor's Sardaukar terror troops.

I have many self-professed liberal friends who hold religious people in the utmost contempt. Often I've had to hear noxious statements from their mouths professing their amazement that an otherwise intelligent person such as myself could believe in a "higher power." We've gotten into many heated debates over the subject.

There is a huge prejudice in the Manhattan liberal community against people of faith. They consider religious people to be ignorant and stupid, just as they consider much of the nation that isn't a New York liberal to be as well. This is a large percentage of the liberal community.

Many of these people would fall into the 90% category of people that claim to have some spirituality, but in reality all they claim is a token acceptance to the possibility that there might be something out there. These people hold themselves above people of faith, people that know there is something out there greater than ourselves., because they feel they are open to the possiblity that something is out there but aren't "foolish" enough to admit to believing it.

This is the type of arrogance we are fighting against.

I have friends like that too. I hate them.

I find her argument unconvincing and a little too cute. All these judges say they will follow the laws as written. They all say they'll stick with precedent. If you are telling me you are not convinced because they are religious and their faith will trump their oath, then you are imposing a religious test.

If it's not really as simple as that, I'd like to know why.

I don't think there even is a debate about whether or not the left is motivated in general by an anti Christian bigotry (fake-religious people in name only, e.g., John Kerry are exempt of course).

The evidence of a very real bigotry is pretty overwhelming if you've ever been on the receiving end.

Leftist hatred of Christianity is the one unified theory of politics that adequately explains their behavior on every issue.

Cal wrote: "You seem to forget that the Democrats are "people of faith" as well. As is about 90% of the country, regardless of their politics."

I'm not talking about people who say they believe in God. I'm talking about the 44% of people who say they've attended church/synagogue in the last 7 days. What percentage of these folks do you think are democrats? Don't be a knucklehead. Address the point: Are democrats now the abortion party?

Cal wrote: "You seem to forget that the Democrats are "people of faith" as well. As is about 90% of the country, regardless of their politics."

does that include the liberals who dont believe in religion, but are "deeply spiritual people" because they bought some reiki crystals, drink chai, go to an acupunturist, and went to the Free Tibet concert?

Here's the horrible thing that no one really wants to face: fully 100% of the population is governed by some sort of imaginary being, whether it is an omnipotent God, Binky the Space Clown, or their own vision of their ideal "rational" selves. At least God probably exists.