Rep. Gabbard accuses fellow Dems of stoking ‘bigotry’ for questioning court pick's Knights of Columbus ties
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, appeared to accuse fellow Democrats of stoking “religious bigotry” this week for their questioning of a Trump judicial pick’s Knights of Columbus membership.
“While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus,”
Gabbard said in an op-ed for
The Hill on Tuesday.
Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, raised concerns about lawyer Buescher's membership in the Catholic organization as part of the Senate Judiciary Committee's review of his nomination by President Trump to sit on the U.S. District Court in Nebraska.
As first reported by
the Catholic News Agency, Hirono asked whether his membership in the Knights of Columbus would prevent him from hearing cases “fairly and impartially” and, if confirmed, whether he would end his membership in the charitable organization.
“The Knights of Columbus has taken a number of extreme positions,” Hirono said in the questionnaire. “For example, it was reportedly one of the top contributors to California’s Proposition 8 campaign to ban same-sex marriage.”
Harris, in her questions to the nominee, called the Knights of Columbus “an all-male society” and asked the Nebraska lawyer if he was aware that the group was anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage when he joined. The Catholic Church has opposed both abortion and gay marriage for centuries.
In her op-ed, Gabbard noted that the standard her fellow Democrats were using would have disqualified members of the Kennedy family from serving.
“If Buescher is 'unqualified' because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the 'liberal lion of the Senate' Ted Kennedy would have been 'unqualified' for the same reasons,” she said.
Rep. Gabbard accuses fellow Dems of stoking ‘bigotry’ for questioning court pick's Knights of Columbus ties