Feest Isolation Days – 28 October
Hardly surprising my thoughts have turned to the Supreme Court in the States today.
Amy Coney Barrett has of course been appointed by the Republican controlled Senate and she will begin straight away. That she is a conservative is not in doubt. As a Justice, she considers herself to be an originalist which means that when forced to choose between the Constitution’s original wording and precedent, as a Supreme Court justice she will go with a dogmatic interpretation of the Constitution.
The Founding Fathers who developed the Constitution, wisely understood that any document they wrote would be unable to anticipate the changes that might be required in the future, and provided the amendment process to update the Constitution as needed. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816, “Let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods.”
Amy does not believe in making any changes to the original Consitiution…hence her self described position as an originalist. She must have missed the bit where Thomas mentions the reason the amendment process exists.
She is a member of a group and served as a trustee to an organisation called People of Praise. This is a small religious community based in charismatic Catholicism. This group, and others like it, according to Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villanova University, who has studied groups like this, “typically feature the dynamic of a strong hierarchical leadership, and a strict view of the relationship between women and men. Amy and her family have belonged to this group for four decades. According to the LA Times, “The Associated Press reviewed 15 years of back issues of the organization’s internal magazine. On Friday, all editions of the magazine were removed from the group’s website.”
Women who are assigned to help guide other women in People of Praise are known by the term “handmaid” If the hair isn’t yet raising on the back of your neck, read this full report about the group in the Los Angeles Times.
Amy and her husband have seven children, two of them adopted from Haiti. One of her sons has Down’s Syndrome. Yet she has not been a friend to women when it comes to her judicial work.
I couldn’t watch Handmaids Tale, but I did watch Mrs. America. Amy is a lovely woman I’m sure. She reminds me of the Kate Blanchet character. Who knew America could be so steeped in this sort of stuff? Perhaps I did. I have lived in the UK for forty years.
The legacy of Amy and the rest of the Supreme Court crew will be here long after Covid is contained. Fortunately, Article Three of the Constitution does NOT set the size of the Supreme Court or establish specific positions on the court (with the exception of the Chair). This means that should Biden and his team turn the country blue, there will be the opportunity to “pack the court” with people who might be the antidote to the views and ideas that Amy has. Let us hope the vote goes in the right direction. Whatever happened to the separation of Church and State? And women’s rights?
We shall see.
With love
Kathy x