Vetting and Kvetching About Elena Kagan: The report shows Kagan’s willingness to ignore facts in favor of a political agenda

Political Advocacy Tracker is a roundup of what Christian activist organizations have been talking about the past week.

Vetting and Kvetching About Kagan
Heading into a week of Senate hearings, conservatives came prepared with a long list of objections to Elena Kagan, President Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Many groups showed little restraint in their criticisms of the former Harvard Law School dean, some calling for her withdrawal because of her work during the Clinton administration on the issue of partial-birth abortion.

Summing up conservative concerns, Liberty Counsel warned that Kagan would “spend decades … legislating rather than adjudicating and ultimately changing America for the worst.”

“Even though she lacks any judicial experience, her expressed views on such critical issues as the First Amendment, the role of the judiciary, the sanctity of human life, and homosexuality, among other matters, are alarming,” said Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) president Richard Land.

Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink called for people to lobby Senators to vote no on Kagan, whom they said “has spent her professional career working for judges who embrace judicial activism, law schools that indoctrinate it, and presidents who enable it,” and whom “has also demonstrated hostility to traditional marriage, support for abortion, and approval of homosexuals in the military.”

The American Family Association (AFA) labeled Kagan “a dangerous judicial activist,” “anti-military and pro-homosexual,” “pro-abortion and anti-life,” “anti–Second Amendment,” “anti-capitalist and pro-socialist,” and “pro-Muslim.”

The latest concerns with Kagan’s nomination center on her involvement in partial-birth abortion legislation during the Clinton administration. National Review reported that Kagan had suggested new language for a statement by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) on partial-birth abortion. Kagan suggested that the ACOG change a statement saying that the procedure was not “the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman” to one stating it “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” The final ACOG statement included Kagan’s suggestion.

Conservatives said the report shows Kagan’s willingness to ignore facts in favor of a political agenda.