[JURIST] The White House Wednesday cited the religious views of US Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers [official profile; JURIST news archive], acknowledging the relevance of those to religious conservatives while denying that they should play any role in the rulings of a judge. Spokesman Scott McClellan confirmed that on October 1, two days before the nomination, top White House aide Karl Rove had assured conservative Christian leader James Dobson [profile] of Focus on the Family [advocacy website] that Miers was an evangelical Christian from a "very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life". Parrying questions from reporters who noted that the religious views of recently-confirmed US chief justice John Roberts did not really come up during his confirmation, McClellan nonetheless went on to say [press briefing transcript] that Miers "recognizes...that a person's religion or personal views have no role when it comes to making decisions as a judge. A judge should make decisions based on our constitution and our laws." Meanwhile President Bush said [official transcript] in brief comments to the press pool during the visit of Polish president Kwasniewski that his administration was trying inform people about Miers' background, and that part of that was her religion. AP has more.