Alito: an Historic opportunity

America, say goodbye to an era! Samuel Alito's confirmation would give SCOTUS a majority of Roman Catholics for the first time in US history. IndyStar.com has the story here.

The details:

More than 200 years of Protestant domination on the Supreme Court would end if Samuel Alito is confirmed as its next justice. For the first time in U.S. history, five Roman Catholics -- a majority -- would be on the high court. Yet news that the son of an Italian immigrant father, someone who grew up in a suburban Newark, N.J., parish where he served as a lector and later married, doesn't carry quite the power it might have had in the days when John and Robert Kennedy ran for the White House.

Catholics have become part of the nation's political mainstream -- far removed from the blatant anti-Catholic prejudice that once permeated America. They are as divided as other Americans on abortion and other social issues, which will be a focus of Alito's confirmation hearings -- making an outpouring of religious pride for the conservative jurist less likely.

"The Catholic community is not going out dancing in the streets of Boston tonight because of this nomination," said James Davidson, a Purdue University sociologist who researches religion and Supreme Court justices. "But it still represents a significant development in American religious history."

Protestants have been so dominant on the court that half of the justices have come from just three denominations: the Episcopal, Presbyterian and Congregational churches, he said. Only two Protestants would remain on the Supreme Court -- David Souter and John Paul Stevens. The two other justices -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- are Jewish.

Take a bow, Fools of the Catholic persuasion. History beckons.

But fear not! Today's Reasonable elites will do their best to resurrect the Know-Nothing rhetoric of the late 19th century. They can't allow yet another Fool to sit upon the Judiciarium. Why, he might actually demand that a Court be a court! How unReasonable. No, the mouth-foamers will soon bring out their papist conspiracy claims, since insinuating Judge Alito's La Cosa Nostra connections made no traction.

Thanks be to God that it ain't the '50s! Claiming a Judge will forsake his independence because he's Catholic rings hollow. Four Catholics sit on the SCOTUS bench already. Are they vatican patsies as well? No, I'm afraid that everymen will join all Fools in laughing these sputterings off the National stage.

Senators, be a part of history. Vote to confirm Judge Alito as the next associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.