Public support for the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett continues to grow since she was first nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court by President Donald Trump on September 26. At the same time, media stories continue to surface in a last-ditch attempt to trash Barrett’s religious affiliations and beliefs.
A new Morning Consult Poll reveals that 51% of voters now approve of Barrett’s confirmation, up 14 points from the first poll taken after Trump announced her nomination. Just 28% of those surveyed between October 16 and 18 for the poll oppose her confirmation.
It’s a higher level of support than either of the two previous nominees for the high court, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, enjoyed at any time during their confirmation processes.
Support for Barrett is high among Republicans at 79%, as one might guess, but surprisingly even 32% of Democrats and 44% of Independents support her, according to the poll numbers.
About a third of voters, 34%, say they have read or heard “a lot” about the Barrett nomination. A majority, 54%, say they believe the addition of Barrett to the Supreme Court will make the court more conservative.
While average Americans may be in favor of Barrett’s nomination, there are elements in the media that continue to portray Barrett’s Catholicism, as evidenced by her affiliations with People of Praise, as well as her service as a board member for Christian schools, as weird, cultish and homophobic.
The Associated Press (AP), for example, spent over 3000 words attempting to paint a picture of Barrett as an extreme homophobe, using guilt by association as its tactic. Here are the opening paragraphs:
“Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served for nearly three years on the board of private Christian schools that effectively barred admission to children of same-sex parents and made it plain that openly gay and lesbian teachers weren’t welcome in the classroom.
“The policies that discriminated against LGBTQ people and their children were in place for years at Trinity Schools Inc., both before Barrett joined the board in 2015 and during the time she served.”
A more journalistically fair opening could also have been, “Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served for nearly three years on the board of private Christian schools whose admissions and hiring policies reflect their biblical beliefs. Such practices are guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and are shared by millions of Americans.”
That wouldn’t have fit the narrative the AP was striving to create, however. The AP admits that it interviewed mostly homosexuals for its story who at one time were part of the People of Praise community, and their complaints about being ill-treated revolve around acts or speech that could be characterized as unkind, such as one instance where a teacher allegedly told the class that all homosexuals go to hell.
The story also brings up an instance where another homosexual-identified former member of People of Praise says he was forced to undergo “conversion therapy,” which, AP takes pains to point out, is a “discredited practice and condemned” by various LGBT-supportive medical associations. Nowhere in the article does the story mention that “conversion therapy” is a pejorative term coined by LGBT activists, and is not used by therapists who engage in talk therapy with clients who voluntarily seek help for unwanted same-sex attractions.
Another media piece painting People of Praise as a cult that covers up sexual assault is from The Guardian and begins with the lurid headline, “Revealed: ex-members of Amy Coney Barrett faith group tell of trauma and sexual abuse.”
What you learn in the story is that one instance of alleged sexual abuse is told by a former member of People of Praise, a group that has been around since the early 1970s. But then the article clarifies that “her alleged abuser – who along with her family was technically a member of a precursor group called Servants of the Light/Lord that merged in 1984 with People of Praise…”
So the alleged abuser wasn’t even a member of People of Praise at the time of the abuse?
The article never details any of the alleged “emotional trauma” that its headline teases, but does report that two dozen former members of People of Praise are now in a support group “to discuss how the faith group affected their lives.” It reports that some of them feel “triggered” by the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.
The Guardian admits that none of the allegations reported on involve Judge Barrett at all, but it still managed to expound on the alleged trauma and abuse for over 1800 words. What’s the point?
It is noteworthy that even the Democrat members of the Senate Judiciary Committee did not bring up Barrett’s religious faith during her recent confirmation hearings, as they did in her 2017 hearings for her nomination to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet the media still seems intent on pursuing an agenda designed to smear Barrett with every failing, real or imagined, exhibited by her religious associations.
Barrett’s nomination is expected to result in a Senate floor confirmation vote on October 26.
Related:
Senators Ben Sasse, Joe Manchin Blast ‘Anti-Catholic’ Attacks Against Judge Amy Coney Barrett
President Trump Selects Judge Amy Coney Barrett to Serve on the Supreme Court
Photo from Sipa USA
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