If Supreme Court behavior is structured largely by the policy preferences of the justices, political scientists ought to consider the source of those preferences. Religion is one force that can strongly shape a judge’s worldview and therefore her or his votes. In this article, the author examines the effect of religion on U.S. Supreme Court votes in eleven issue areas plausibly connected to religious values. Catholic justices vote in ways that more closely adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church than do non-Catholic justices even after controlling for ideology. These results may indicate that Catholic theology is different from Protestant or Jewish theology. It is also possible that on some issues there is not much of a theological difference, but religious values play a more prominent role in public life for Catholic justices.
AllinsmithWesleyAllinsmithBeverly. 1948. “Religious Affiliation and Politico-Economic Attitude: A Study of Eight Major U.S. Religious Groups.” Public Opinion Quarterly12:377-89.
2.
AshenfelterOrleyEisenbergTheodoreSchwabStewart J. 1995. “Politics and the Judiciary: The Influence of Judicial Background on Case Outcomes.” Journal of Legal Studies24:257-81.
BiskupicJoan. 2009. American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. New York: Sarah Crichton Books.
5.
BlakeWilliam. N.d. “Umpires as Legal Realists.” PS: Political Science & Politics. Forthcoming.
6.
BoydChristina L.EpsteinLeeMartinAndrew D.2010. “Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging.” American Journal of Political Science54:389-411.
7.
BrudneyJames J.SchiavoniSaraMerrittDeborah J. 1999. “Judicial Hostility toward Labor Unions—Applying the Social Background Model to a Celebrated Concern.” Ohio State Law Journal60:1675-1772.
8.
Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. 508 U.S. 520 (1993).
9.
ClarkHunter R.1995. Justice Brennan: The Great Conciliator. Secaucus, NJ Carol.
10.
CollinsPaul M.2008. “Amici Curiae and Dissensus on the U.S. Supreme Court.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies5:143-70.
11.
ColucciFrank J.2009. Justice Kennedy’s Jurisprudence: The Full and Necessary Meaning of Liberty. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
12.
DaynesByron W.TatalovichRaymond. 1984. “Religious Influence and Congressional Voting on Abortion.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion23:197-200.
Employment Division v. Smith. 494 U.S. 872 (1990).
15.
EpsteinLeeMartinAndrew D.SegalJeffrey A.WesterlandChad. 2007. “The Judicial Common Space.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization23:303-25.
16.
EpsteinLeeKnightJackMartinAndrew D.2003. “The Norm of Prior Judicial Experience and Its Consequences for Career Diversity on the U.S. Supreme Court.” California Law Review91:903-66.
17.
FarhangSeanWawroGregory. 2004. “Institutional Dynamics on the U.S. Court of Appeals: Minority Representation under Panel Decision Making.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization20:299-330.
18.
FassettJohn D.1994. New Deal Justice: The Life of Stanley Reed of Kentucky. New York: Vantage.
19.
GibsonJames L.1977. “Race as a Determinant of Criminal Sentences: A Methodological Critique and a Case Study.” Law and Society Review12:455-78.
20.
GilesMichael W.WalkerThomas G.1975. “Judicial Policy-Making and Southern School Segregation.” Journal of Politics37:917-36.
21.
GoldmanSheldon. 1975. “Voting Behavior on the United States Courts of Appeals Revisited.” American Political Science Review69:491-506.
22.
GrasmickHarold G.CochranJohn K.BursikRobert J.KimpelM’Lou. 1993. “Religion, Punitive Justice, and Support for the Death Penalty.” Justice Quarterly10:289-314.
23.
GreenJohn CliffordRozellMark J.WilcoxClyde. 2006. The Values Campaign? The Christian Right and the 2004 Elections. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
24.
GuginLinda C.St. ClairJames E.1997. Sherman Minton: New Deal Senator, Cold War Justice. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society.
25.
HackerHans J.2005. The Culture of Conservative Christian Litigation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
26.
HarvilleMichael L.RienziBeth M.2000. “Equal Worth and Gracious Submission.” Psychology of Women Quarterly24:145-47.
27.
HoDaniel E.ImaiKosukeKingGaryStuartElizabeth. 2006. “MatchIt: Nonparametric Preprocessing for Parametric Causal Influence.”http://gking.harvard.edu/matchit/.
28.
HoDaniel E.ImaiKosukeKingGaryStuartElizabeth A.2007. “Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference.” Political Analysis15:199-236.
29.
JelenTed G.WilcoxClyde. 2003. “Causes and Consequences of Public Attitudes toward Abortion: A Review and Research Agenda.” Political Research Quarterly56:489-500.
KannarGeorge. 1989. “The Constitutional Catechism of Antonin Scalia.” Yale Law Journal99:1297-1357.
32.
KennedyJohn F.1998. “Remarks on Church and State.” In A Wall of Separation? Debating the Public Role of Religion, edited by SegersMary C.JelenTed G., 140-44. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
33.
KnollBenjamin R.2008. “‘And Who Is My Neighbor?’ Religion and Attitudes toward Immigration Policy.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.
34.
Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches School District. 508 U.S. 384 (1993).
35.
LevinsonSanford. 1989. Constitutional Faith. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
36.
LevinsonSanford. 2003. Wrestling with Diversity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
PerryBarbara Ann. 2008. “Catholics and the Supreme Court: From the ‘Catholic Seat’ to the New Majority.” In Catholics and Politics: The Dynamic Tension between Faith and Power, edited by HeyerKristin E.RozellMark J.GenoveseMichael A., 155-74. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2009. “Faith in Flux: Religious Conversion Statistics and Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.”http://pewforum.org/Faith-in-Flux.aspx.
51.
PinelloDaniel R.2003. Gay Rights and American Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
RobertsJohn. 2005. “‘I Come Before the Committee with No Agenda. I Have No Platform.’”New York Times, September13, 28.
55.
Rochin v. California. 342 U.S. 165 (1952).
56.
Rosenberger v. University of Virginia. 515 U.S. 819 (1995).
57.
ScaliaAntonin. 2002. “God’s Justice and Ours.” First Things123:17-22.
58.
SegalJeffrey A.SpaethHarold J.1993. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
59.
SekhonJasjeet S.2007. “Multivariate and Propensity Score Matching Software with Automated Balance Optimization: The Matching Package for R.” Journal of Statistical Software10:1-51.
60.
SiskGregory C.HeiseMichaelMorrissAndrew P.2004. “Searching for the Soul of Judicial Decisionmaking: An Empirical Study of Religious Freedom Decisions.” Ohio State Law Journal65:491-617.
61.
SongerDonald R.TabriziSusan J.1999. “The Religious Right in Court: The Decision Making of Christian Evangelicals in State Supreme Courts.” Journal of Politics61: 507-26.
62.
SpaethHarold J.EpsteinLeeRugerTedWhittingtonKeithSegalJeffreyMartinAndrew D.2010. “The Supreme Court Database.” http://scdb.wustl.edu/.
TatalovichR.SchierD.1993. “The Persistence of Ideological Cleavage in Voting on Abortion Legislation in the House of Representatives, 1973–1988.” American Politics Research21:125-39.
65.
TateC. Neal. 1981. “Personal Attribute Models of the Voting Behavior of U.S. Supreme Court Justices: Liberalism in Civil Liberties and Economics Decisions, 1946–1978.” American Political Science Review75:355-67.
66.
TateC. NealHandbergRoger. 1991. “Time Binding and Theory Building in Personal Attribute Models of Supreme Court Voting Behavior, 1916–88.” American Journal of Political Science35:460-80.
67.
ThomasAndrew Peyton. 2002. Clarence Thomas: A Biography. San Francisco: Encounter Books.
68.
ThomasClarence. 2008. My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir. New York: Harper.
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. 2007a. “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops.” http://www.faithfulcitizenship.org/
73.
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. 2007b. “Statement of Most Reverend Gerald R. Barnes On Immigration Enforcement Initiatives.” http://old.usccb.org/mrs/enforcement.shtml
74.
UlmerS. Sidney. 1970. “Dissent Behavior and the Social Background of Supreme Court Justices.” Journal of Politics32:580-98.
75.
UlmerS. Sidney. 1973. “Social Background as an Indicator to the Votes of Supreme Court Justices in Criminal Cases: 1947–1956 Terms.” American Journal of Political Science17:622-30.
76.
VinesKenneth N.1964. “Federal District Judges and Race Relations Cases in the South.” Journal of Politics26: 337-57.
77.
VorspanAlbertSapersteinDavid. 1998. Jewish Dimensions of Social Justice: Tough Moral Choices of Our Time. New York: Union for Reform Judaism.
78.
WilliamsonJohn B.1974. “Beliefs about the Motivation of the Poor and Attitudes toward Poverty Policy.” Social Problems21:634-48.
79.
WuthnowRobert. 1989. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
