Are you concerned that Neil Gorsuch belongs to a far-left church?
President Obama was criticized by Republicans for attending a church led by Jeremiah Wright, who repeatedly criticized the United States for being, in his own opinion, an evil terrorist nation. People wondered, how could Obama sit through sermons like that, year after year? Didn't that mean that at the very least, Obama didn't have any serious problems with what Wright was saying?
Well, we saw after eight years of Obama that that was probably true – that Obama saw America in a bad light. That's why he kept trying to "fundamentally transform" it.
But what about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch? He belongs to a far-left church that embraces marriage redefinition, gun control, and the theory of man-caused global warming.
He belongs to St. John's Episcopal Church in Boulder, Colo., the Episcopal diocese of Colorado confirmed on Wednesday. Church bulletins show that the judge has been an usher three times in recent months. His wife Louise frequently leads the intercessory prayer and reads the weekly Scripture at Sunday services, and his daughters assist in ceremonial duties during church services as acolytes.
The first word that St. John's uses to describe itself on its website and Facebook page is "inclusive," and the church is led by a female rector. On its website, the church encourages members to write letters to Congress asking for actions addressing climate change.
That's not all. Its website also calls for members to lobby their congressmen for more gun control.
Rev. Susan Springer has said she is pro-gay marriage and offers blessings to same-sex couples
The church's Rev. Ted Howard also signed a letter slamming the 'disrespectful rhetoric' directed at Islam as Trump floated a ban on Muslim immigrants[.] ...
Church authorities also appear to be strongly in favor of environmental initiatives and added solar panels to the roof because of 'climate crisis[.]'
As an Episcopalian, it's not as though Gorsuch didn't have other choices:
A 2004 article in the journal Anglican and Episcopal History examined the two Episcopal churches in Boulder. At the time, the writer described St. John's as the older and more traditional church building, but the more theologically and politically liberal of the two. The churches diverged on the subject of homosexuality, the article said: the other church, St. Aidan's, underlined the word "traditional" on its website while St. John's added the words "AIDS-aware" to indicate its welcome to LGBT people.
So what does this tell us about Gorsuch? We don't really know. Perhaps he liked the church and simply disregarded its politics. Though I would think a constitutionalist might find the repeated emphasis on "rights" of refugees and "rights" to marriage for members of the same sex to be ridiculous if not unpleasant to repeatedly listen to.
That's why I wonder if Gorsuch may be sympathetic to some of these causes. That can have an impact when he is on the court and ruling on matters such as marriage or global warming regulations or increased vetting of people from Muslim countries.
I think, legitimately, if Reverend Wright's comments made you put a question mark by Obama, the politics of St. John's Episcopal Church might make you do the same with Neil Gorsuch.
Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.