Kennedy’s nearly 20-year career in the Marines is central to his identity and self-presentation. From an early age, his desire to be a Marine was inspired by his uncle Dan. One day, Kennedy recalls, his uncle yelled at him, and it “scared the living crap out of me. From that moment on, I was in awe. He just commanded respect in the way he carried himself, and I wanted to be just like him.” He and Uncle Dan would hang out occasionally, though they “never really talked,” watching John Wayne movies.
My point is not to call Kennedy’s religiosity into question. As the historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez has chronicled, twentieth-century white evangelicals developed a conception of Christian masculinity that embraced militarism, pugnacity, and John Wayne. There is no contradiction, historically speaking, between being a good Christian and, say, ripping all the fingernails off your hand and “revel[ing] in the pain and the psychological terror it inflicted on the opponent” (as Kennedy recounts doing during a Marine football game). Likewise, “polite zealotry” is still zealotry. But it is noteworthy that Kennedy’s is a new face of religious freedom. Not exactly a mild-mannered, Bible-quoting, devout wedding-cake artist.
What if Kennedy’s abrasive crassness is not a detriment to his cause but, rather, part of the appeal? In district court, Kennedy remembers, “Many times, I wanted to jump up and scream, ‘That’s crap!’ and neck-punch somebody, but I couldn’t.” In a very strange chapter, co-written with his wife, Denise, he recalls kissing her without consent twice, once at age 14 and once when they were married to other people. He uses the word “butthurt” twice. If you find such passages off-putting, consider that other people, perhaps including Neil Gorsuch, might not.