In recent months, political operatives and interest groups on both sides of the aisle have been working quietly behind the scenes to win over one of the most crucial—yet also one of the most under-appreciated—voter demographics that will be key to winning the White House this November: American Catholics. But the apparent ascension of Kamala Harris to the top of her party’s ticket makes it even more unlikely that Democrats can make inroads with this group that has leaned right in recent cycles.
Much as he has throughout his political career, Joe Biden leaned heavily into his self-proclaimed devout Catholic faith during his 2020 presidential campaign. However, Biden has removed all doubt about his administration’s hostility toward believers and core tenets of the Catholic faith throughout his presidency – most notably through his outspoken support for abortion, his public celebration of radical transgender ideology, and his Department of Justice repeatedly targeting Catholics as “violent extremists.”
The Biden-Harris administration’s anti-Catholic bigotry was also seen with the nomination and appointment of Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who infamously led progressives’ longstanding efforts to force the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order, to violate their religious precepts and pay for birth control.
Harris, as Biden’s vice president, owns this record as well – and has her own troubling history of anti-Catholic bias. As Catholics prepare to head to the polls this Election Day, they should be aware of precisely how dangerous a Harris presidency would be for their faith, their values, and their freedom to worship.
Among the most egregious examples of Harris’s anti-Catholic bigotry came during a 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, when then-Senator Harris strongly insinuated that American Catholics are not fit to serve as federal judges. When questioning Brian Buescher, a nominee to be a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, Harris pointed to his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal and charitable organization, as problematic, condemning the organization’s (and the Church’s) mainstream Christian views as extremist.
“Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men,” Harris stated pointedly. “In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus, described abortion as ‘a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.’ Mr. Anderson went on to say that ‘abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.’ Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?”
Harris then went on to condemn the Church’s views on marriage. Many viewed her comments as essentially amounting to an overt and illegal religious test of a judicial nominee.
Harris’s blatantly anti-Catholic line of questioning elicited overwhelming backlash not only from Catholics, but from other Americans of faith and Harris’s colleagues in the U.S. Senate. Former Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), for instance, noted the “alarming” nature of the questioning, which showed that Democrats “are getting more and more comfortable with imposing religious tests on Federal judicial nominees.”
But Harris’s clear record of anti-Catholicism doesn’t stop there. In 2015, when she served as California’s Attorney General, Harris sponsored the so-called “FACT Act,” which legally required pregnancy care centers to advertise for free or low-cost abortion facilities in their waiting rooms. (Fortunately, the law was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018).
In 2016, when a whistleblower revealed that Planned Parenthood was illegally trafficking organs and tissue from aborted infants, Harris outrageously ordered a raid on the whistleblower’s home to seize his evidence.
As a Senator, Harris also introduced the so-called “Do No Harm Act,” which would compel Catholic doctors to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs and perform abortions and transgender surgeries on patients. The legislation would also prevent religious groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, as well as Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities, from operating until they disavowed their religious beliefs.
Harris is additionally an avid supporter of the so-called “Equality Act,” which would allow men to compete in women’s sports, force Catholic churches to host same-sex wedding receptions, force the closure of Catholic adoption and foster care programs, and strike a death blow to religious liberty all across the nation.
As her track record clearly shows, Kamala Harris stands as one of the most militantly anti-Catholic figures in the United States government, and a Harris presidency would pose existential dangers for the future of Catholicism in America. For both Catholics and every American who cares about religious liberty, the stakes in this election could not be higher.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
