Pat Robertson was the most visible leader of this new "Christians as a minority" argument. After his campaign for president ended in 1988, he increasingly used the rhetoric of oppression to gain sympathy for his cause. Robertson compared Christians in America to Jewish Holocaust victims during a discussion of the film The Last Temptation of Christ. He claimed, "once you assault what people believe, like Hitler did the Jews in Germany, the next thing you do is go after them. ... that's the first opening shot, if you will, in the war to destroy the Christian population in America and the world."

While Ralph Reed, now a campaign strategist for President George W. Bush, ran the Christian Coalition he explicitly compared the Christian Right to the civil rights movement. Reed's 1994 book Politically Incorrect contained chapter titles like "To The Back of the Bus" and "The New Amos and Andy." He claimed that Christians were constantly "under attack whenever they enter the public arena." While he did not believe, as Robertson did, that Christians were being systematically persecuted, Reed claimed that conservative Christians had been "viewed as less than full citizens."

The liberals want justices legislating from the bench, who will make their own laws favoring their way-out agenda, while the conservatives want justices who will interpret the laws correctly and rule accordingly. And betwixt the two common ground will never be reached. Not only do I find it appalling that Harriet Miers has been attacked by the anti-Christian folks - I take it as a personal attack on all Christians. The anti-Christian groups are "infringing" upon the rights of Christians to worship freely. This is a "blatant" disregard of Amendment I of the "Bill of Rights" where it states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. It is also up to congress to protect the religious rights of Americans - but the silence is deafening in the "halls of Congress" as they avoid confronting the abuse of Christians at the hands of the "godless" folks.

Would United States Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers have been better received as a nominee if she were a "progressive" Jewish man instead of a conservative evangelical Christian woman?

Is one evangelical Christian Supreme Court nominee since the Herbert Hoover administration (1929-1933) one too many?

... Justice Brandeis was 60 years old when he joined the Supremes. Ms. Miers is 60 years old.

Justice Brandeis had no prior judicial experience. Neither does Ms. Miers.

As a Jew, Justice Brandeis overcame discrimination and stereotypes. As a woman, so did Ms. Miers. The first woman hired by her law firm, she became the head of the firm, the head of the Dallas Bar Association and the head of the Texas Bar Association.

Justice Brandeis went to law school and practiced law privately in Massachusetts. Ms. Miers went to law school and practiced law privately in Texas.

As a American, Justice Brandeis had strong progressive beliefs that appealed to the President who nominated him, Woodrow Wilson, who often consulted him before nominating him. Ms. Miers has strong conservative beliefs that appeal to the President who nominated her, George W. Bush, who regularly consulted with her during his Presidency.

Justice Brandeis was a leader of the American Zionist movement. His political and religious views were not disqualifying. Neither should Ms. Miers' views be disqualifying.

What in God's name - you should forgive the expression - is all this about there being "no religious test" for appointments to high public office? Most particularly in the case of the U.S. Supreme Court, there is the most blatant religious test imaginable. You may not even be considered for the bench unless you have a religion of some kind. Surely no adherent of any version of "originalism" can possibly argue that the Framers of the Constitution intended a spoils system to be awarded among competing clerical sects.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the man who is now our chief justice. I pointed to unrebutted evidence that, in answer to a direct question from a fellow Catholic (Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill.), Roberts had replied that in the case of a conflict between the law and the teaching of the Vatican, he would recuse himself. Since obviously it is impossible to nominate, let alone confirm, anyone who does not answer that the law and the Constitution should control in all cases, I proposed that Roberts ought to be asked the question again and in public. For this, I got exactly what I expected: allegations of anti-Catholic bigotry from the fideists at National Review and then (not just for my benefit) a full-page ad or two in the press, saying that anyone who dared raise such a question would be accused of applying ? "a religious test." Roberts got suavely through his hearings without the inconvenience of the question, had a large Bible with illuminated crucifix in the family photo-op with the president, and now joins his three fellow Catholics on the court.

Of the nomination of Harriet Miers, by contrast, it can be said that only her religion has been considered by her conservative fans to be worth mentioning. What else is there to say, in any case, about a middling bureaucrat and yes-woman than that she attends some mediocre place of worship? One could happily make a case that more random civilians, and fewer fucking lawyers, should be on the court. But the only other thing to say about Miers is that she is a fucking lawyer. Her own opinion of herself is somewhat higher: She does not attribute her presence among us to the laws of biology but chooses to regard herself as having a personal and unmediated relationship with the alleged Jesus of Nazareth, who is further alleged to be the son of God. Such modesty! On this basis, the president and his people have felt able to issue assurances of her OK-ness. So, as far as I can determine, she was set, and has passed, a religious test: that of being an "Evangelical" Christian.

Either Miers takes her faith seriously, in which case it must be her life's mission to redeem those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior, or she does not, in which case she is a vapid and posturing hypocrite. And either she is nominated in order to gratify a political constituency, whose leaders such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family seem to have had advance notice, or she is not, in which case the president could see no further than his own kitchen Cabinet in searching for merit. So, the whole exercise is a disgusting insult.

But what is honest skepticism - and a regard for evidence and logic - when set against the profession of a mere "faith" that neither demands nor offers any evidence of any kind? And this latter "qualification" is now urged upon us with special fervor in the selection of - a judge.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday that people of faith should not fear being viewed by "educated circles" as "fools for Christ."

The justice - in Baton Rouge to address the Knights of Columbus Council 969 centennial celebration without charging a fee - told a largely Roman Catholic crowd of 350 at the Holiday Inn Select that there's nothing wrong with "traditional Christianity."

"To believe in traditional Christianity is something else," Scalia said. "For the son of God to be born of a virgin? I mean, really. To believe that he rose from the dead and bodily ascended into heaven? How utterly ridiculous. To believe in miracles? Or that those who obey God will rise from the dead and those who do not will burn in hell?

"God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools ... and he has not been disappointed."

... "If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world."

As a recovering alcoholic and survivor of rape and childhood sexual abuse, there has been nothing but faith at times that has allowed me to continue living (sober!) in a world I have frequently wished to desert. I discovered a higher power through the 12 steps and continue to know that power in my life; I often come across people who misunderstand, who consider reliance on a higher power to be weak and cowardly, or even stupid...

One thing I have learned through all of my experiences in dealing with matters of the spirit is that the word "God" has meanings attached to it that have undermined it and spoiled it, and that when people use that word, they have one concept in mind, which of course is very limited. One other thing I have learned is that people who have never found themselves in a situation that they could not possibly comprehend or conquer through their own wills and resources (or resources they've been given by others) are the quickest to say that there is no God. Not that I wish them to experience that - okay, maybe sometimes. Anyway, your comments about learning to love and be in this world were so very important for me to hear and truly validated my personal work and the message I carry to other women and those who may be suffering.

After years of being told by people of faith (almost exclusively Christians) that my lack of same must be due to some horrible event in my life, some trauma that convinced me there couldn't possible be a benevolent controlling intelligence behind the universe, I now read from your e-mail correspondent that "people who have never found themselves in a situation that they could not possibly comprehend or conquer through their own wills and resources (or resources they've been given by others) are the quickest to say that there is no God."

So now my lack of faith is apparently down to the absence of trauma, rather than an over-abundance of it. (Could it possibly be that faith or the lack of it is more about the individual and how he or she deals with trauma than it is about traumatic events themselves? Perhaps different people just deal differently.)

I'm not sure why people feel the need to come up with some aberrational explanation for my failure to share their beliefs, but this gratuitous insult - supplemented by the expressed (and rather un-Christian) wish that I one day experience such horror - spoiled what would otherwise have been an affecting account of one person finding a way to deal with the trouble in her life.

After news broke that local law enforcement officials were investigating complaints that Louis Beres, longtime chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon, had molested three female family members when they were pre-teens, The Oregonian in Portland went out and interviewed Beres' family members.

Two told reporters that Beres, indeed, had molested them. All three said they have been interviewed for several hours by detectives.

"I was molested," said one of the women, now in her early 50s. "I was victimized, and I've suffered all my life for it. I'm still afraid to be in the same room with [Beres]."

The coalition led by Beres, 70, champions socially conservative candidates and causes. Its Web site describes the group as "Oregon's leading grassroots organization defending our Godly heritage." The group opposes abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research. It is affiliated with the national Christian Coalition, which was founded in 1989 by television evangelist Pat Robertson.