‘No scientific evidence’: Hawley rips judicial nominee for arguing religious Americans more likely to spread COVID

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/06/07/no-scientific-evidence-hawley-rips-judicial-nominee-for-arguing-religious-americans-more-likely-to-spread-covid-1366233/

June 7, 2023 | Kate Anderson |  Print Article

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Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said he won’t vote for one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees Wednesday due to arguments she made that religious Americans were more likely to spread COVID-19.

Loren AliKhan, Biden’s nominee for United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday but was confronted by Hawley about her previous arguments regarding religious discrimination. Hawley asked if AliKhan believed it was wrong to discriminate against religious communities and questioned her previous comments about the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Do you think it’s wrong to discriminate on the basis of religious faith?” Hawley asked.

“Absolutely,” AliKhan said. 

“Then why did you argue that religious services and religious people pose a greater risk of infection than people gathered to argue for defunding the police,” Hawley replied.

AliKhan told the committee that as the Solicitor General of the District of Columbia, she was defending D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s COVID-19 lockdown orders that did not allow churches to meet or hold services. AliKhan argued that her arguments were made after discussing the issue with epidemiologists, claiming they told her that churches posed more of a risk due to “singing.”