ABA Objects to Judge for “passionately held social agenda.”

The American Bar Association objected to the nomination of Leonard Steven Grasz, a former Nebraska chief deputy attorney general, to a seat on the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, giving him their “not qualified” rating,

Why? They said some weird things like he’s rude and they asked where his children went to school. But what this is really about is he’s a pro-life Christian.

The Wall Street Journal’s Bill McGurn writes:

The ABA’s statement makes clear his “not qualified” rating is based on two broad worries: his “passionately held social agenda” and complaints that he’s been “gratuitously rude.”

By “passionately held social agenda,” the ABA means abortion; in his prior life Mr. Grasz defended—as a state deputy attorney general is obliged to do—a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortion. What it means by “rude” no one knows, because the ABA has thrown this out there while providing almost no specifics. For good measure, the ABA has twisted a two-decade-old law review article to suggest Mr. Grasz rejects a point he explicitly states, to wit, that judges are bound by clear legal precedent—even when “it may seem unwise or even morally repugnant.”

To be clear, the ABA doesn’t seem to object to “passionately held social agendas” when that agenda includes gay marriage or killing the unborn.

This is of interest in the wake of the nomination of Notre Dame Law professor Amy Coney Barrett to the 7th Circuit. You’ll recall that Diane Feinstein said she was worried that “the dogma lives loudly” in Barrett and therefore she didn’t want to approve her nomination. Senator Dick Durbin also made clear he didn’t approve of her “orthodox” Catholicism.

I think the Democrats realized the time wasn’t right yet for such blatant anti-Christianity so therefore they changed the nomenclature of their objections back to “social issues.” But let’s be clear, it’s the same issue. It’s just another way of saying the same thing. They are worried that Grasz is too religious and therefore pro-life. They’re worried that he sends his children to a Lutheran school. Why else ask?

This move by the ABA is just as anti-Christian as Feinstein’s questioning of Amy Coney Barrett. It’s just being outsourced to the ABA now. And they’re using less obvious language.