'Bernie Sanders Test' as bigoted as it is unconstitutional

Aaron Baer is the president of Citizens for Community Values.

According to one U.S. senator, nearly three-quarters of Ohioans are unfit for public office.

In a recent Senate committee hearing, Bernie Sanders, a popular U.S. senator from Vermont, unveiled his religion-based test for whether you should be allowed to hold office in the Federal government.

Call it unconstitutional. Call it unconscionable. The reality is in one line of questioning, Sanders attempted to undermine an American tradition: respect for religious differences.

The “Sanders Test,” as I’ll call it, was introduced during a meeting of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee while they considered the confirmation of Russell Vought, President Trump’s nominee for the deputy White House budget director.

Like 73 percent of Ohioans (according to a 2014 Pew Poll), Vought is a professing Christian. A central tenant of Christianity is the belief that Jesus alone is the path to salvation, and as Christ said in John 3:18, “Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Vought wrote a blog post to this effect last year when discussing the differences between Christian and Muslim theology (keep in mind, Islam along with most other major religions make similar exclusive truth claims about the path to salvation).

In Sanders’ eyes, this is a great offense, so tremendous in scale that Vought is unfit to hold a job managing our nation’s budget.

So instead of focusing on Vought’s financial and accounting acumen, Sanders decided to grill Vought about this blog post on religious views. Ultimately, Sanders concluded that because of Vought’s beliefs about salvation, “this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about,” and that Vought should not be confirmed.

The Sanders test is as bigoted as it is un-American.

First and foremost, a basic civics/history lesson would inform the senator of two things: that Article XI of the Constitution clearly prohibits this kind of religious test for holding public office. And second, if believing that Christ was the only path to salvation made one unfit for public office, then great American leaders throughout time would have been disqualified: from Washington to Lincoln to Kennedy.

It’s also important to note that a number of people in his own party would fail “The Sanders Test.” According to the Pew Poll cited earlier, 40 percent of Christians in Ohio are Democrats or lean Democrat.

What is most evident however is that Sanders is demonstrating that he clearly does not understand what makes America truly great: that people of diverse doctrines, beliefs, and backgrounds can live peaceably together and pursue the common good. Or worse, he thinks he can score political points by berating an accountant for his Christian orthodoxy.

This is unfortunate because the reality is the same Bible that Sanders was using to criticize Vought also calls Christ-followers to “live peaceably with all,” “love your neighbor” and “serve the orphan and widow in their affliction.” These are exactly the kind of values that everyone should want out of our public servants, regardless of their religion.

The invention of the unconstitutional “Sanders Test” comes at an interesting time – there are still hundreds of Federal appointments to go before the Senate. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown is one of the most high-profile Democratic senators in the country and will be voting on a number of these nominees. What’s more, he’s up for re-election in 2018, and this race is already getting national attention.

That’s why last week, chairman of the Democratic National Committee Tom Perez was in Cincinnati, raising money and meeting voters.

So the question for Brown and Perez is do they agree with their friend and party member’s new standard for office holders? Do they believe that 73 percent of Ohioans shouldn’t be allowed to work in public service?

How Brown answers this question may dictate whether the voters send him back to Washington D.C. in 2018.