'Deeply entrenched anti-gay views': Amy Coney Barrett urged to recuse herself from gay rights case
When then-President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett for the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, her socially conservative views were a primary factor. Trump, running for reelection, wanted to show the Christian Right that he still had their backs.
Justice Barrett is a Catholic, not a Protestant evangelical. But she has been a member of a severe far-right group called People of Praise, which is not a traditional Catholic group, but rather, has combined Catholicism with elements of fundamentalist evangelical Protestantism.
Some ex-members of People of Praise have been highly critical of an outfit they once belonged to. And they are urging Barrett to recuse herself from a case involving gay rights, as she has been a part of a group with blatantly anti-gay views.
Stephanie Kirchgaessner, reporting on the case in an article published by The Guardian on November 21, notes that the ex-members are “saying Barrett’s continued affiliation with the Christian group means she has participated in discriminatory policies against LGBTQ+ people.”
“The former members are part of a network of ‘survivors’ of the controversial charismatic group who say Barrett’s ‘lifelong and continued’ membership in the People of Praise make her too biased to fairly adjudicate an upcoming case that will decide whether private business owners have a right to decline services to potential clients based on their sexual orientation,” Kirchgaessner explains. “They point to Barrett’s former role on the board of Trinity Schools Inc, a private group of Christian schools that is affiliated with the People of Praise and, in effect, barred children of same-sex parents from attending the school.”
According to Kirchgaessner, a Trinity Schools faculty guide that was published in 2015 — the year in which Barrett became a board member — said that “blatant sexual immorality” had “no place in the culture of Trinity Schools.” And the guide considered “homosexual acts” an example of “blatant sexual immorality.”
Maura Sullivan, a former People of Praise member, told The Guardian that her parents (who are still People of Praise members) wanted to keep her away from her younger sister when she came out as bisexual.
Sullivan told The Guardian, “I don’t believe that someone in her position, who is a member of this group, could put those biases aside, especially in a decision like the one coming up…. (My parents) decided that I wasn’t allowed to be around my sister, who was 13 at the time, without them around, because I could ‘influence’ her in bad ways. Stuff like that. So, I had a tenuous relationship with my family. To be cut off from my family was the ultimate loss of community.”
Kevin Connolly, another former People of Praise member, considers their practices blatantly “anti-gay.’
Connolly told The Guardian, “The People of Praise has deeply entrenched anti-gay values that negatively affect the lives of real people, including vulnerable youth. These values show up in the everyday policies of the People of Praise and their schools. They are policies that are way outside the mainstream, and most Americans would be disturbed by them.”
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