The appropriateness of considering a Supreme Court nominee's religious beliefs in Senate nomination hearings and deliberations is now a high agenda item. Among the little know about nominee Harriet Miers, her religious beliefs are now a matter of public record. Yesterday, papers like the Washington Post and New York Times ran long stories on Miers' spiritual journey from Catholicism to becoming a born-again Christian active in a Dallas evangelical church.
Her former law firm colleague, Nathan L. Hecht, now a justice on the Texas Supreme Court recounted the event: "She decided that she wanted faith to be a bigger part of her life. One evening she called me to her office and said she was ready to make a commitment" to accept Jesus Christ as her savior and be born again, he said. He walked down the hallway to her office. There amid the legal briefs and court papers, the two "prayed and talked".
