Issue #93

by Art Kelly

1. 71% of the American people are closely following the confirmation battle over President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, with 47% having an unfavorable view of her.

Rasmussen Reports found that 48% believe Kagan is a liberal, 30% see her as a moderate, 4% think she is a conservative, and 18% are not sure.

67% of Democrats have favorable view of Kagan, but 72% of Republicans and 53% of independents have an unfavorable opinion of her.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that the confirmation hearings for Kagan, which were scheduled to begin June 28, could be delayed pending review of tens of thousands of records from the Clinton Administration, in which Kagan served as White House counsel and domestic policy adviser.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned, “We’re heading to what could be a train wreck. I don’t believe that this committee can go forward with an adequate hearing” without all the records from her previous governmental service.

Sessions also expressed great concern over Kagan’s actions in barring military recruiters from Harvard Law School because she objected to the federal law that prohibited homosexual from serving in the armed forces.

Kagan’s actions were characterized by Sessions as “wrong” and “not lawful” because she openly defied a law that was still in force while it was under appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually upheld the law.

2. The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) detailed the Obama Administration’s strong support for the Vatican in an Oregon lawsuit that named the Holy See as a defendant.

A brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by the Acting Solicitor General of the U.S. (the principal deputy to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan), as well as by other officials of the Attorney General’s office and the State Department, stated that the district court and 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made mistakes in ruling that the Vatican is liable for sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests.

According to the NCR, “Experts say this is the first time the United States government has officially expressed an opinion about efforts to sue the Vatican in American courts.”

3. A new Gallup Poll has found that 16% of the people have no religious identity and 28% say religion is out of date.

In looking at trends over several decades, Gallup says “the percentage saying they do not have a specific religious identity growing from near zero in the 1950s to 16% this year and last.”

Gallup also asked if the respondents thought “religion is largely old-fashioned and out of date.”

“When Gallup first asked this question in 1957, 7% of Americans said religion was old-fashioned. That percentage was generally at or around 20% during much of the 1980s and 1990s, but has risen to 29% last year and 28% this year,” Gallup explained.

Those who believe religion can answer all or most of today’s problems is 58%, but that is a decline from 82% in 1958.