The Religious Right activist group American Family Association (AFA) has rescinded its promise to oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, less than 24 hours after the organization pushed back against President Trump’s announcement.
Last night, AFA president Tim Wildmon sent an action alert to the AFA mailing list asking members to contact senators and urge them to oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination. Wildmon described Kavanaugh as having a “deficiency in a constitutional judicial philosophy of a limited judiciary” and took issue with his ruling in a case involving contraception. The statement, which has since been deleted from AFA’s website, read:
Judge Kavanaugh is simply the wrong nominee-even a bad nominee. Based on his written opinions, Judge Kavanaugh has demonstrated a deficiency in a constitutional judicial philosophy of a limited judiciary. Some of his decisions may have been favorable, but several of his opinions about those decisions contain problematic language.
Although Judge Kavanaugh decided correctly in court case Priests for Life v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Services, he wrote a moderate opinion disagreeing with the Priests on a foundational constitutional religious liberty principle.
As a result of Obamacare, the faith-based organization Priests for Life and others argued that the government could not compel or force them to provide contraception and abortion causing drugs for their employees. Judge Kavanaugh unnecessarily conceded in his opinion that the government has a compelling interest to force religious organizations to provide contraceptives and abortifacients for employees. Kavanaugh’s concession created a dangerous precedent.
There are also concerns with his opinion related to illegal alien female minors who are expecting but also seeking an abortion in the United States. Other concerns relate to his writings on Obamacare. It’s been argued that Judge Kavanaugh provided the roadmap to uphold the Obama Administration’s healthcare overreach at the Supreme Court. Judge Kavanaugh is said to provide the legal argument for Chief Justice to save Obamacare by calling the mandatory insurance a tax.
Judge Kavanaugh’s reasoning on religious liberty, Obamacare and issues concerning life have proven to be of major concern. For these reasons and more, urge your senators to firmly oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh as a Justice on the United States Supreme Court.
Today, less than 24 hours later, Wildmon sent another action alert calling off the organization’s efforts to mobilize against Kavanaugh. That statement read:
AFA has opposed the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S Supreme Court for some very valid reasons. We are deeply concerned about how he might ultimately rule on issues related to abortion and religious liberty. For these reasons, we consider this nomination to represent a four-star appointment when it could have been five-star.
However, after hearing the concerns of some of our supporters, and after hearing the passionate defense of Judge Kavanaugh by many we consider to be friends in the pro-life movement, we are willing to let this process play out. We eagerly await the confirmation hearings when we hope to get clarification from Judge Kavanaugh on aspects related to our concerns.
At this time, we have no plans to fight President Trump on this nomination. He has appointed a lot of good federal judges already and we look forward to many more. We hope that our concerns prove to be unfounded.
