In an article for Newsweek, Senior Fellow Ashley McGuire recounts the numerous ways that the Kamala Harris campaign alienated Catholic voters in the presidential election. Harris’ extreme views and intolerant positions toward Catholics’ values and practices – even suggesting that Catholic doctors do not have conscience rights – led to her double digit loss of the Catholic vote, McGuire argues. In her article, “Kamala Harris’ Radical, Inflexible Policies Lost Her the Catholic Vote,” she writes:
“America has narrowly dodged a bigot.
Throughout Kamala Harris‘ presidential campaign, the incumbent vice president made no attempts to appeal to Catholic voters. Instead, she insulted us all the way to the finish line.
Just weeks before Election Day, Harris snubbed the Al Smith Dinner—the year’s most high-profile Catholic charitable event, which is attended by politicians from both sides of the aisle and which no presidential candidate from either major party has skipped since Walter Mondale was routed in 1984. Harris opted instead to send in a cringey, dead-pan video mocking Catholic school girls and cracking bad jokes about the Last Supper.
Shortly thereafter, Harris tripped over herself in an interview to ensure viewers knew that she believed there should be no concessions for religious freedom and conscience rights when it comes to abortion. She couldn’t even wait until her interviewer finished the question to make clear she thinks Catholic doctors should be forced to perform abortions, an extreme view even for the most ardent of pro-choicers.
The response was hardly surprising—Harris’ career is built on a no-concessions record when it comes to religious liberty. Religious freedom is not something you concede; it is the inherent right of every person, one that precedes the state and any government official. But that has never meant anything to Harris.”
