Amy Coney Barrett Should Not Be Allowed to Serve on the Supreme Court.

Amy Coney Barrett’s refusal to answer direct questions regarding Roe v Wade, the Affordable Care Act & same sex marriage along with her refusal to commit to recusing herself from any cases concerning the presidential election, should automatically disqualify her from serving on the highest court in the land. Like Brett Kavanaugh before her, she has been dodging questions that she doesn’t want to answer. This is the MO of Catholics, particularly Conservative Catholics & Barrett goes a huge step further than Conservative Catholics. This is evidenced by her association with the People of Praise, which I have no doubt is no better than a cult.

Any organization or group where someone tells you who you should marry, where you should live, etc. is a cult period. I believe that People of Praise manages to stay mostly under the radar because the group requires it’s members to continue attending their own churches. While the majority of it’s membership are Catholic, they are not all Catholic nor are they required to convert to Catholicism, they just have to be members of a religion.

I was raised Catholic & I went to Catholic school from Kindergarten until I graduated from high school, with the exception of one year of elementary school during which I attended a public school. I was baptized, I received first communion; however, I refused to go through confirmation. I no longer considered myself to be Catholic, which didn’t stop my mother from forcing me to continue attending Catholic school, she still forced me even after she married my step-father & stopped being a practicing Catholic herself because he isn’t a member of any religion.

The Catholic Church is rooted in misogyny. Before entering 9th grade I was forced to sign a contract saying that I would not get pregnant, if a girl did end up pregnant she would be forced to withdraw from the school, if she had an abortion & the school found out about it, she would be expelled. While the boy who got her pregnant, if he also attended the school, would be allowed to continue attending the school; in fact, he wouldn’t have any consequences whatsoever. When I changed schools for 10th grade that Catholic school had the same policy. It was clearly stated in both handbooks as though there is nothing wrong with only punishing the girl when half the blame should be placed on the boy who had sex with her. These are the kinds of things that the Catholic Church seeks to normalize, now imagine how much further groups like People of Praise are likely to go. The group could tell her how to rule on cases & even if they didn’t, her husband very likely will, given that a woman who is a member of the People of Praise is expected to obey her husband at all times. They are also expected to have as many children as possible, which is evidenced by the fact Barret has seven children. How many people do you personally know with that many children? My grandparents did, but they have all passed away, both of my grandmothers outlived my grandfathers & both grandmothers died at the age of 90 in 2012. My mother used to claim to be a devout Catholic, but even though she was fully capable of having more children, I’m an only child.

Democrats are afraid to bring up Barrett’s religion & her membership in the People of Praise because Republicans keep accusing them of attacking Barrett for her religious beliefs. The problem isn’t her religious beliefs themselves, it is the obvious influence those beliefs have on her court rulings & written opinions. Here in the U.S. there is supposed to be separation of church & state.

Barrett is anti-abortion, despite the fact that anti-abortion women are not forced to get abortions. Just because some people are anti-abortion, doesn’t give those people the right to force their religious beliefs on those of us who are pro-choice. Barrett is against same sex marriage, despite the fact that nobody forces someone who is against same sex marriage to marry someone of the same gender, nor are they forced to attend same sex weddings. The fact that Catholics & evangelicals are taught by their religion to believe that any couple that isn’t one male & one female is wrong, does not give them the right to take away the right to marry whoever one chooses. The U.S. is not a theocracy & those who seek to force their religious beliefs on the rest of us are very much in the minority. The only way to stop Republicans from taking more of our rights away is for us liberals to start fighting as dirty as conservatives do, Republicans have been engaging in procedural warfare for over 20 years, we must immediately begin responding in kind.