Trump's Nominee for Attorney General Wants to Impose Christian Rule

Not my favorite. Sean Gallup / Getty Images

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Looks like Brett Kavanaugh isn't the only Trump nominee who likes to reveal the extent of his sycophancy and the paucity of his moral imagination in obscure legal journals!

On Sunday The Daily Beast dug up an essay in the The Catholic Lawyer written by William Barr, the guy Trump nominated to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. In the essay, Barr argues that the government should impose “a transcendent moral order with objective standards of right and wrong that…flows from God’s eternal law.” Establishment clause aside, God's eternal law is famously harsh on women, gay people, and Onanists—to name a few—and those are just the sorts of people who stand to lose if the Senate confirms Barr as Attorney General.

In the piece, Barr decries the "breakdown of traditional morality" and repeats the lie that the Founding Fathers sought to establish a Christian nation. He calls for the government to pass laws restricting "immoral" behaviors like getting a divorce, practicing "sexual immorality" (i.e. being gay and/or engaging in premarital sex), starting a "homosexual activist group," or cohabitating with a partner. He seems to have a real animus toward STIs, conceiving of "venereal disease" as punishment for promiscuity and "sexual licentiousness." Never mind the obvious fact that you can pick up an STI from having sex just once.

Barr also generally bemoans the progress of women’s movements and LGBTQ movements, writing, "Decades ago, we saw the barriers to divorce eliminated. Twenty years ago, we saw the laws against abortion swept away. Today, we are seeing the constant chipping away at laws designed to restrain sexual immorality, obscenity, or euthanasia.” If anybody wanted to start freaking out about the possibility of an actual "sex panic," one stoked and supported by the full force of the Department of Justice, now would be the time.

Anyway, in order to fight back against this dismal expansion of human rights, Barr instructs the Catholic political establishment to dump all their resources into asking the government to provide vouchers for Catholic schools so that they can "reassemble the flock."

Vouchers for Catholic schools? What do you think about that, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie? "In Catholic school, as vicious as Roman rule, I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black. I held my tongue as she told me, 'Son fear is the heart of love.' So I never went back."

Thanks, Ben. Stop trying to abuse Ben Gibbard, William Barr!!

Barr wrote this anti-sex, anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-Ben Gibbard piece of "scholarship" after he served as Attorney General under George H.W. Bush, whose death has been conferring upon Barr no small amount of prestige in the last few days. Everyone has since been talking about him as a shoe-in for the role, and, given the Republican majority in the Senate, he probably will be. But just because this Catholic crusader impressed the Senate with his "candid" views on the unconstitutionality of abortion in the early 1990s doesn't mean he should lead the DOJ now.

As the New York Times has already reported, in addition to reestablishing our Democratic Republic as a Catholic Theocracy, Barr holds "expansive views of presidential power," applauds Trump for obstructing justice by firing James Comey, and thinks the DOJ is "abdicating its responsibility" by NOT investigating Hillary Clinton and the debunked Uranium One conspiracy. Barr is going to use the DOJ's office to protect the President and to attack his enemies rather than using it to uphold the Constitution and defend our democracy. As Caroline Fredrickson wrote this morning in the Times, he's the Roy Cohn that Trump has been asking for since he took office. As such, every member of the Senate should loudly oppose his nomination.

Lindsey Graham, who will head up the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, has vowed to continue investigations into the President's former political rivals if House Democrats insist on holding Trump accountable for his alleged crimes, so it looks like we're not going to get much resistance to Barr from Senate Republicans. (Rand Paul has raised an eyebrow about Barr's stance on the Patriot Act, though.) But there's not a single reason for any Democrat vote for this guy.

Washington Senator Patty Murray seems skeptical of Barr. "There is a whole lot to be concerned about with Mr. Barr," she said in a statement. "And there are a whole lot of questions he is going to need to answer over the course of this confirmation process before any Senator should even consider moving to a vote."

"When you have a president who appears willing to do just about anything to protect his own interests, including politicizing the Department of Justice, it is even more important that a nominee for Attorney General be crystal clear about where he stands and how he would be independent and fair to all Americans," Murray added.

A spokesperson for Senator Cantwell said she also "has concerns and is continuing to review Barr’s nomination."