Amy Coney Barret SCOTUS nomination thread

[Muda69]

Amy Coney Barrett Condemns Purdue University's 'Fundamentally Unfair' Adjudication of Sexual Assault Claims: https://reason.com/2020/09/27/amy-coney-barrett-condemns-purdue-universitys-fundamentally-unfair-adjudication-of-sexual-assault-claims/

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John and Jane, two students in Purdue University's Navy ROTC program, began dating in the fall of 2015 and had consensual sex 15 to 20 times. According to John, Jane's behavior became increasingly erratic, culminating in a suicide attempt he witnessed that December. They broke up in January 2016, after John tried to get Jane help by reporting her suicide attempt to two resident assistants and an adviser.

Three months later, in the midst of the university's s Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Jane alleged that John had sexually assaulted her on two occasions. Those charges ultimately led Purdue, a state university in West Lafayette, Indiana, to suspend John for a year, forcing him to resign from ROTC and ending his plans for a career in the Navy. The process that led to those results, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett concluded in a 2019 opinion for a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, "fell short of what even a high school must provide to a student facing a days-long suspension."

The case, which Ben McDonald covered here last year, illustrates the extent to which universities, responding to a 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter from the U.S. Department of Education, created procedures that effectively presumed the guilt of students charged with sexual assault. That letter warned university officials that their handling of such cases would be scrutinized under Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. The department broadened the definition of "sexual harassment," required schools to assess charges based on a "preponderance of the evidence" (meaning they are more likely than not to be true) rather than a stricter standard, and encouraged other short cuts by universities keen to maintain federal funding.

The upshot was that many students facing sexual assault charges did not receive anything resembling due process. The plaintiff in this case, identified in court documents as "John Doe," was accused of digitally penetrating his then-girlfriend, identified as "Jane Doe," while she was asleep and, on another occasion, groping her over her clothes, also while she was asleep. John denied both accusations, citing Jane's continued friendly texts with him after both alleged incidents, noting that a roommate who was present on one of those occasions denied that anything like what Jane described had happened, and offering the testimony of character witnesses. He also suggested that Jane was angry with him because he reported her attempted suicide, an intervention that had precipitated their breakup.

But John never really got a chance to present a defense, because university officials had already made up their minds. Barrett's description of what happened is based on John's account, because at this stage of the case she was deciding whether he had stated legal claims against the university that he should be allowed to pursue, assuming the facts he alleged were true. But most of the facts, especially as they relate to the university's biased process for investigating sexual assault allegations, are undisputed.

Although Jane never filed a formal complaint and never testified about the alleged assaults, the university pursued the case on her behalf. John said he first heard about the allegations when he received a letter from Katherine Sermersheim, Purdue's dean of students and a Title IX coordinator. At that point, Barrett notes, "John was suspended from the Navy ROTC, banned from all buildings where Jane had classes, and barred from eating in his usual dining hall because Jane also used it."

Sermersheim charged two underlings with investigating Jane's allegations. Their report was submitted to a three-person panel of Purdue's Advisory Committee on Equity, which was responsible for recommending how the university should respond. John was not allowed to see the full report, but a Navy ROTC representative gave him a redacted version a few minutes before John was scheduled to appear before the committee. John discovered that the investigators claimed he had confessed—which was not true, he said—and that they had omitted any reference to Jane's suicide attempt, which was relevant in evaluating her credibility and her possible motive for making false charges.

John and the "supporter" he was allowed under Purdue's rules met with the advisory committee for half an hour. "The meeting did not go well for John," Barrett notes. "Two members of the panel candidly stated that they had not read the investigative report. The one who apparently had read it asked John accusatory questions that assumed his guilt. Because John had not seen the evidence, he could not address it. He reiterated his innocence and told the panel about some of the friendly texts that Jane had sent him after the alleged assaults. The panel refused John permission to present witnesses, including character witnesses and a roommate who would state that he was present in the room at the time of the alleged assault and that Jane's rendition of events was false."

A week later, John received a letter in which Sermersheim said she had found him guilty by a preponderance of the evidence. She suspended him for a full academic year and conditioned his return to school on completion of "bystander intervention training" and meetings with Purdue's Center for Advocacy, Response, and Education, which supports victims of sexual violence.

John appealed Sermersheim's decision to Alysa Rollock, Purdue's vice president for ethics and compliance, who asked Sermersheim to explain the factual basis for her finding. Sermersheim said she had found John guilty based on her assessment of his credibility and Jane's. "I find by a preponderance of the evidence that [John] is not a credible witness," she wrote. "I find by a preponderance of the evidence that [Jane] is a credible witness." Although Jane never appeared before the advisory committee and Sermersheim never talked to her in person, that assessment was good enough for Rollock, who confirmed Sermersheim's ruling and the sanctions that accompanied it.

John, who was forced to leave Navy ROTC because of that decision, sued Sermersheim, her investigators, Rollock, Purdue President Mitch Daniels, and the university's trustees in 2017, arguing that his treatment violated the 14th Amendment's guarantee of due process and Title IX's ban on sex discrimination. After a federal judge dismissed all of his claims, Barrett and two other 7th Circuit judges concluded that John's due process and Title IX claims against the university should have survived.

Regarding the due process claim, the judges found that the damage to John's career plans affected a "liberty interest" protected by the 14th Amendment. And taking the facts stated by John as true, they said, it was clear that Purdue's procedures fell short of due process.

"John received notice of Jane's allegations and denied them, but Purdue did not disclose its evidence to John," Barrett wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. "Withholding the evidence on which it relied in adjudicating his guilt was itself sufficient to render the process fundamentally unfair."

There were other problems with Purdue's process. "At John's meeting with the Advisory Committee, two of the three panel members candidly admitted that they had not read the investigative report, which suggests that they decided that John was guilty based on the accusation rather than the evidence," Barrett noted. "And in a case that boiled down to a 'he said/she said,' it is particularly concerning that Sermersheim and the committee concluded that Jane was the more credible witness—in fact, that she was credible at all—without ever speaking to her in person. Indeed, they did not even receive a statement written by Jane herself, much less a sworn statement. It is unclear, to say the least, how Sermersheim and the committee could have evaluated Jane's credibility."

Sermersheim and the committee also gave short shrift to John's countervailing evidence. "Sermersheim and the Advisory Committee may have concluded in the end that John's impeachment evidence did not undercut Jane's credibility," Barrett wrote. "But their failure to even question Jane or John's roommate to probe whether this evidence was reason to disbelieve Jane was fundamentally unfair to John." And because Jane never testified, John never had a chance to cross-examine her.

In these circumstances, Barrett and the two other judges concluded, John should be able to seek an injunction requiring the university to expunge its finding of guilt from his disciplinary record, thereby removing a crucial obstacle to his career plans. They also found his allegation of sex discrimination plausible.

John argued that the Education Department's 2011 guidance, which Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has reversed precisely because of concerns about its impact on due process, gave Purdue a financial incentive to slant its adjudication process against male students like him. While the letter may be relevant in evaluating Purdue's motive, Barrett said, it is not enough, by itself, to make John's sex discrimination claim credible.

But Barrett noted additional evidence cited by John, including the fact that "Sermersheim chose to credit Jane's account without hearing directly from her." According to John's lawsuit, the advisory committee was "similarly biased in favor of Jane and against John." Barrett thought it was "plausible that Sermersheim and her advisors chose to believe Jane because she is a woman and to disbelieve John
because he is a man."

Barrett also noted a Washington Post article that Purdue's Center for Advocacy, Response, and Education (CARE) "put up on its Facebook page during the same month that John was disciplined." The headline: "Alcohol Isn't the Cause of Campus Sexual Assault. Men Are." That statement, "which CARE advertised to the campus community, could be understood to blame men as a class for the problem of campus sexual assault rather than the individuals who commit sexual assault," Barrett wrote. Notably, CARE's director wrote a letter about Jane's charges that "Sermersheim apparently gave significant weight."

None of this necessarily means that John will ultimately win his lawsuit, which remains unresolved. But Barrett thought he should at least get a chance, and her reasoning reflects a concern about due process that should be welcomed by people on the left as well as the right.

That probably will not happen, however. Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times, cites John Doe v. Purdue University in an article that says Barrett "has compiled an almost uniformly conservative voting record in cases touching on abortion, gun rights, discrimination and immigration." He mentions the case under the "discrimination" heading, implying that her position reflected insensitivity to that concern. But leaving aside the fact that John claimed he was a victim of sex discrimination, Barrett's opinion is mainly about due process, the lack of which may or may not have been related to John's sex but should in any case trouble any fair-minded person.

Liptak contrasts Barrett with her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked in the late 1990s. "While Justice Scalia's methods occasionally drove him to liberal results, notably in cases on flag burning and the role of juries in criminal cases," he says, "Judge Barrett could be a different sort of justice." There is not much evidence to support that distinction, especially given Barrett's opinions in cases involving the Fourth Amendment, excessive federal sentences, and qualified immunity for police officers. And if upholding the due process rights of someone facing sexual assault charges does not count as a "liberal result," the term has lost all meaning.

 

It's clear that Ms. Barrett made the right decision in this disgusting case regarding "John Doe" and Purdue University.

 

[Muda69]

What You Need to Know About Amy Coney Barrett's Jurisprudence: https://mises.org/power-market/what-you-need-know-about-amy-coney-barretts-jurisprudence

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Below is a look from a libertarian perspective at the statements and rulings of the likely Trump nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.

President Trump is expected to officially announce his choice for the Supreme Court on Saturday afternoon.

The good from a libertarian perspective:

•  Barrett wrote in 2017 that Chief Justice John Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning in order to save it.

•  Barrett dissented when the appeals court upheld a decision restricting the Second Amendment rights of a felon convicted of mail fraud. She said non-violent offenders should not lose their constitutional right to firearms possession.

•  In a dissent, Barrett defended the Trump administration's rule denying immigrants permanent residence if they become regular users of public assistance.

• Barrett helped to block the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's effort to stop an employer from transferring Chicago-area employees based on their race or ethnicity. The agency had accused AutoZone of making the transfers to reflect area demographics.

•  Barrett ruled that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act does not apply when policies impact plaintiffs unintentionally.The ruling went against a 58-year-old job applicant who lost out to someone half his age when the company sought to hire a person with less than seven years' experience.

• In the case Rainsberger v. Benner, Barrett authored an opinion in which she denied qualified immunity -- a protection for government officials from being sued for judgment calls they make on the job -- for a police officer who was alleged to have submitted a document "riddled with lies and undercut by the omission of exculpatory evidence" that led to a man being put in jail for two months.

• In a 2019 opinion, she concluded that Drug Enforcement Administration agents violated the Fourth Amendment when they searched a suspect's apartment based on the consent of a woman who answered the door but did not live there.

• In 2018, Barrett concluded that an anonymous tip did not provide reasonable suspicion for police to stop a car in which they found a man with a felony record who illegally possessed a gun. "The anonymous tip did not justify an immediate stop because the caller's report was not sufficiently reliable," she wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel. "The caller used a borrowed phone, which would make it difficult to find him, and his sighting of guns did not describe a likely emergency or crime—he reported gun possession, which is lawful."

• Barrett has written several opinions overturning excessive federal sentences. In a 2019 case, she said a methamphetamine dealer should not have received extra time because of prior convictions under a state truancy law. That same year, she concluded that a judge should not have imposed a four-level enhancement for possessing a gun in connection with a drug offense without citing any evidence of that connection.

The bad from a libertarian perspective:
 

• In a 2019 decision, two members of a three-judge panel said Indiana courts and a federal district court had erred by rejecting a defendant's claim that prosecutors improperly withheld exculpatory evidence when they tried him for attempted murder. According to Supreme Court's 1963 decision in Brady v. Maryland, the failure to disclose such information is a violation of due process...The defendant in the 7th Circuit case, Mack Sims, did not discover until after he was convicted that the victim, whose testimony was crucial in identifying Sims as the perpetrator, had undergone hypnosis prior to the trial, which may have tainted his recollection of the crime. Between the attack and the trial, 7th Circuit Judge William Bauer noted in an opinion joined by Judge David Hamilton, the victim's account changed, as did his confidence that Sims was the man who had shot him... In these circumstances, they concluded, the use of hypnosis was an important piece of information that could have affected the outcome of the trial.In her dissent, Barrett said the majority had failed to give the Indiana Court of Appeals proper deference. "Even though I think that the undisclosed evidence of [the victim's] hypnosis constitutes a Brady violation, it was neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law for the Indiana Court of Appeals to conclude otherwise," she wrote. "If I were deciding the question de novo, I would agree with the majority that the suppressed evidence of hypnosis undermined confidence in the verdict. But because I can't say that the Indiana Court of Appeals' decision was 'so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement,' I would affirm the district court's denial of Sims's habeas corpus petition."

• She was part of a three-judge panel that rejected the state GOP’s request for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the lockdown order issued by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The appeals court also rejected  the state GOP claim that Pritzker was selectively enforcing the political gatherings ban by allowing and even endorsing massive Black Lives Matter street protests, while refusing to allow other political groups to assemble.

 

[Bobref]

5 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

What You Need to Know About Amy Coney Barrett's Jurisprudence: https://mises.org/power-market/what-you-need-know-about-amy-coney-barretts-jurisprudence

 

Honestly, the "bad" comments are a real stretch.

In the case about the Brady disclosure, her dissent had nothing to do with being pro-prosecution, or anything like that. It had to do with the proper role of a federal court reviewing a state court conviction. Not surprisingly, her position was that state courts are entitled to some degree of deference when they determine whether something was fair or not in a state court prosecution of a state crime. Hardly an arch-conservative position.

In the Illinois lockdown case, that was merely an appellate affirmance of a district court's ruling denying a preliminary injunction. You would be hard pressed to find a case at the Circuit Court of Appeals level, outside the area of labor law, where a district judge's denial of a preliminary injunction was reversed on appeal. Such a ruling doesn't necessarily say anything about the actual merits of the case in the long run.

[Muda69]

Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women: https://apnews.com/article/new-orleans-donald-trump-amy-coney-barrett-us-supreme-court-courts-1be61f7c3427e41326038e5cdab54839

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President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court has close ties to a charismatic Christian religious group that holds men are divinely ordained as the “head” of the family and faith. Former members of the group, called People of Praise, say it teaches that wives must submit to the will of their husbands.

Federal appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett has not commented publicly about her own or her family’s involvement, and a People of Praise spokesman declined to say whether she and her husband are current members.

But Barrett, 48, grew up in New Orleans in a family deeply connected to the organization and as recently as 2017 she served as a trustee at the People of Praise-affiliated Trinity Schools Inc., according to the nonprofit organization’s tax records and other documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Only members of the group serve on the schools’ board, according to the system’s president.

The AP also reviewed 15 years of back issues of the organization’s internal magazine, Vine and Branches, which has published birth announcements, photos and other mentions of Barrett and her husband, Jesse, whose family has been active in the group for four decades. On Friday, all editions of the magazine were removed from the group’s website.

People of Praise is a religious community based in charismatic Catholicism, a movement that grew out of the influence of Pentecostalism, which emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus and can include baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. The group organizes and meets outside the purview of a church and includes people from several Christian denominations, but its members are mostly Roman Catholic.

Barrett’s affiliation with a conservative religious group that elevates the role of men has drawn particular scrutiny given that she would be filling the high court seat held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a feminist icon who spent her legal career fighting for women to have full equality. Barrett, by contrast, is being hailed by religious conservatives as an ideological heir to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch abortion-rights opponent for whom she clerked as a young lawyer.

In accepting Trump’s nomination Saturday, the Catholic mother of seven said she shares Scalia’s judicial philosophy.

“A judge must apply the law as written,” Barrett said. “Judges are not policy makers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.”

Barrett’s advocates are trying to frame questions about her involvement in People of Praise as anti-Catholic bigotry ahead of her upcoming Senate nomination hearings.

Asked about People of Praise in a televised interview last week, Vice President Mike Pence responded, “The intolerance expressed during her last confirmation about her Catholic faith I really think was a disservice to the process and a disappointment to millions of Americans.”

But some people familiar with the group and charismatic religious groups like it say Barrett’s involvement should be examined before she receives a lifelong appointment to the highest court in the nation.

“It’s not about the faith,” said Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villanova University, who has studied similar groups. He says a typical feature of charismatic groups is the dynamic of a strong hierarchical leadership, and a strict view of the relationship between women and men.

Several people familiar with People of Praise, including some current members, told the AP that the group has been misunderstood. They call it a Christian fellowship, focused on building community. One member described it as a “family of families,” who commit themselves to each other in mutual support to live together “through thick and thin.”

But the group has also been portrayed by some former members, and in books, blogs and news reports, as hierarchical, authoritarian and controlling, where men dominate their wives, leaders dictate members’ life choices and those who leave are shunned.

The AP interviewed seven current and former members of People of Praise, and reviewed its tax records, websites, missionary blogs and back issues of its magazine to try to paint a fuller picture of an organization that Barrett has been deeply involved in since childhood.

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People of Praise was founded in South Bend, Indiana, in 1971 as part of the Catholic Pentecostal movement, a devout reaction to the free love, secular permissiveness and counterculture movements of the 1960s and early ’70s. Many of the group’s early members were drawn from the campus of nearby Notre Dame, a Catholic university.

The group has roughly 1,800 adult members nationwide, with branches and schools in 22 cities across the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. All members are encouraged to continue to attend church at their own parishes.

After a period of religious study and instruction that lasts from three to six years, people involved in People of Praise can choose to make a lifelong covenant pledging love and service to fellow community members and to God, which includes tithing at least 5% of their gross income to support the group’s activities and charitable initiatives, according to a statement on the group’s website.

People of Praise’s more than 1,500-word covenant, a copy of which was reviewed by the AP, includes a passage where members promise to follow the teachings and instructions of the group’s pastors, teachers and evangelists.

“We agree to obey the direction of the Holy Spirit manifested in and through these ministries in full harmony with the church,” the covenant says.

It’s unclear whether Barrett took the covenant. But members of the organization and descriptions of its hierarchy show that members almost invariably join the covenant after three to six years of religious study or they leave, so it would be very unusual for Barrett to continue to be involved for so many years without having done so.

A 2006 article in the group’s magazine includes a photo of her attending a People of Praise Leaders’ Conference for Women. The magazine also includes regular notices when members are “released from the covenant” and leave the group. The AP’s review found no such notice of Barrett’s or her husband’s departure.

A request to interview Barrett made through the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, where she currently serves as a judge, was declined. The judge didn’t mention People of Praise in her 2017 Senate judicial questionnaire, filled out prior to her confirmation for the bench.

Jesse Barrett did not respond to voicemail or email sent through his law firm in South Bend.

People of Praise spokesman Sean Connolly declined to discuss the Barretts or their affiliation with the group.

“Like most religious communities, the People of Praise leaves it up to its members to decide whether to publicly disclose their involvement in our community,” Connolly said by email. “And like most religious communities, we do not publish a membership list.”

Several people familiar with the group told the AP that, unlike some other charismatic movements, People of Praise has a strong commitment to intellectualism, evidenced in part by the schools they have established, which have a reputation for intellectual rigor.

Barrett’s father, Michael Coney Sr., has served as the principal leader of People of Praise’s New Orleans branch and was on the group’s all-male Board of Governors as recently as 2017. Her mother, Linda Coney, has served in the branch as a “handmaid,” a female leader assigned to help guide other women, according to documents reviewed by the AP.

“One of the key principles of People of Praise is freedom, the exercise of our own freedom in following the Lord and in following our own — what we believe, what we think is right,” Michael Coney, 75, said Friday in an interview with the AP.

Joannah Clark, 47, grew up in People of Praise and became a member as an adult. She acknowledged that the board of governors consists of all men, but said that is not a reflection on the “worth or ability of women,” but rather the approach the group has chosen for that level of leadership.

“In a marriage, we look at the husband as the head of the family. And that’s consistent with New Testament teaching,” said Clark, who is the head of Trinity Academy in Portland, Oregon. “This role of the husband as the head of the family is not a position of power or domination. It’s really quite the opposite. It’s a position of care and service and responsibility. Men are looking out for the good and well-being of their families.”

Clark said she had previously served as a “handmaid.” The term was a reference to Jesus’ mother Mary, who called herself “the handmaid of the Lord.” The organization recently changed the terminology to “woman leader” because it had newly negative connotations after Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” was turned into a popular television show.

Clark said the woman leaders in People of Praise do things like provide pastoral care and organize help for community members, such as when people are sick or need other help.

“They’re also in a role of advising, so the men will ask the women leaders’ advice on issues that affect the patterns of life within the community, certainly issues that affect women and families,” Clark said.

Barrett, in accepting Trump’s nomination at the White House on Saturday, put particular emphasis on the equality of her own marriage, saying she expected from the start the she and her husband would run their household as partners.

“As it has turned out, Jesse does far more than his share of the work,” she said. “To my chagrin, I learned at dinner recently that my children consider him to be the better cook.”

Though People of Praise opposes abortion, those familiar with the group said it would be a mistake to pigeonhole their politics as either left or right. While socially conservative in their understanding of family and gender, some members are deeply committed to social justice in matters of race and economics, they said. Barrett’s parents are both registered Democrats, according to Louisiana voter registration records.

___

Tax records and other documents show that as recently as 2017 Barrett sat on the board of Trinity Schools, a campus of which was recently designated by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as a National Blue Ribbon School. The schools are coed, but most classes are segregated by gender.

The school’s website says the group sees men and women “created by God equal in dignity but distinct from one another.”

“We seek to uphold both that equality and appropriate distinction in our culture,” it goes on.

Similarly, at People of Praise the leadership structure is largely segregated by gender. And as they become adults, members frequently live together in same-gender communal houses sometimes owned by the group, or they are invited to live with a family within the community. Articles in the People of Praise magazine frequently note when young single members get married to each other. Multiple birth announcements often follow.

The group’s magazine also offers insights into the group’s views on marriage, community and members’ finances. A 2007 issue discusses how the 17 single women who live together in a household, called the Sisterhood, had their paychecks direct deposited into a single bank account. One member said she had “no idea” what the amount of her paycheck was.

The pooled money was managed by one woman, who budgeted for everyone’s clothing and other expenses, including $36 weekly per person for food and basics like toilet paper. All women were expected to give 10% of their pay to People of Praise, another 1% to the South Bend branch and additional tithes to their churches.

Married couples and their children also often share multifamily homes or cluster in neighborhoods designated for “city building” by the group’s leaders, where they can easily socialize and walk to each other’s houses.

As part of spiritual meetings, members often relay divine prophecies and are encouraged to pray in tongues, where participants make vocal utterances thought to carry direct teachings and instructions from God. Those utterances are then “interpreted” by senior male leaders and relayed back to the wider group.

A 1969 book by Kevin Ranaghan, a co-founder of People of Praise, dedicates a chapter to praying in tongues, which he describes as a gift from God.

“The gift of tongues is one of the word-gifts, an utterance of the Spirit through man,” Ranaghan wrote in “Catholic Pentecostals.” “Alone, the gift of tongues is used for prayer and praise. Coupled with the gift of interpretation it can edify the unbeliever and strengthen, console, enlighten or move the community of faith.”

In a blog entry on the group’s website from March of this year, a mother described taking her children to pray in tongues as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

___

While People of Praise portrays itself as a tightknit family of families, former members paint a darker picture of that closeness.

Coral Anika Theill joined People of Praise’s branch in Corvallis, Oregon, in 1979, when she was a 24-year-old mother of 6-month-old twins.

“My husband at the time was very drawn to it because of the structure of the submission of women,” recounted Theill, who is now 65.

Theill, who converted to Catholicism after getting married, said in her People of Praise community women were expected to live in “total submission” not only to their husbands, but also the other male “heads” within the group.

In a book she wrote about her experience, Theill recounts that in People of Praise every consequential personal decision — whether to take a new job, buy a particular model car or choose where to live — went through the hierarchy of male leadership. Members of the group who worked outside the community had to turn over their paystubs to church leaders to confirm they were tithing correctly, she said.

Theill says her “handmaid,” to whom she was supposed to confide her innermost thoughts and emotions, then repeated what she said to the male heads, who would consult her husband on the proper correction.

“There’d be open meetings where you just have to stand for the group and they’d tell you all that was wrong with you,” Theill recounted to the AP last week. “And I would ask questions. I was a critical thinker.”

When she told her husband she wanted to wait to have more children, Theill said, he accompanied her to gynecological appointments to ensure she couldn’t get birth control.

“I was basically treated like a brood mare,” she said, using the term for a female horse used for breeding. During her 20-year marriage, Theill had eight children from 11 pregnancies.

Theill, who says she declined to take the covenant, described being dominated and eventually shunned because of the doubts she expressed about the group.

Clark, a current member in Oregon, said she had never heard of members being shunned.

“At any point, a community member can decide to leave and is free to do so,” Clark said. She said she has friends who have left the community. “These are people I’ve maintained a good friendship with and people who’ve maintained friendships with other people in community.”

But Theill isn’t the only former member to describe forced subjugation of women within People of Praise or shunning of former members.

Among People of Praise’s very first members in South Bend were Adrian Reimers and his wife, Marie. The couple was active for more than a dozen years before he said he became disillusioned and was “dismissed” from the group in the mid-1980s.

Reimers, who teaches philosophy at Notre Dame, went on to write detailed academic examinations of the group’s inner workings and theological underpinnings. In a 1997 book about People of Praise and other covenant communities, Reimers wrote that the fundamental principle of the group was St. Paul’s stipulation from the Bible that the husband is the “head” of his wife and that the wife is to “submit in all things.”

“A married woman is expected always to reflect the fact that she is under her husband’s authority,” Reimers wrote. “This goes beyond an acknowledgment that the husband is ‘head of the home’ or head of the family; he is, in fact, her personal pastoral head. Whatever she does requires at least his tacit approval. He is responsible for her formation and growth in the Christian life.”

Though women are allowed to serve in some administrative roles within the community, Reimers wrote that no woman is allowed to hold a pastoral position of leadership in which she would oversee or instruct men.

“People who leave these communities are often shunned by other members and are spoken of as no longer brothers and sisters in Christ or even no longer Christian,” he wrote.

Reimers declined to expand on his experience with People of Praise, saying he doesn’t know Amy Coney Barrett and didn’t want to get drawn into a political fight. But he said he stands by his prior account.

“To quote Pontius Pilate, ‘What I have written, I have written,’” he said last week, referring to the Roman official in the Bible who signed the order condemning Jesus to be crucified.

Lisa Williams said her parents joined the Minnesota branch of People of Praise in the late 1970s, when she was a fourth-grader. She chronicled her experience in a blog called “Exorcism and Pound Cake,” a reference to how she knew as a child that it was a meeting night because of the smell of baked goods coming from the kitchen.

“I remember my mother saying a wife could never deny sex to her husband, because it was his right and her duty,” said Williams, 56. “Sex is not for pleasure. It’s for as many babies as God chooses to give you. ... Women had to be obedient. They had to be subservient.”

Corporal punishment of children was common, Williams told the AP. When she was insufficiently obedient to her father, she was beaten with a belt and then required to kneel and ask forgiveness from both him and God, she said.

She recalled People of Praise meetings held in her parents’ living room where members prayed in tongues to cast out demons from a person writhing on the floor, rituals she described as exorcisms.

When her parents, from whom she is now estranged, decided to leave People of Praise when she was a junior in high school, she remembers the leaders said her family would be doomed to hell and they were shunned. “Nobody would talk to you,” she recalled.

Steven Hassan, a mental health counselor who works with people who have left fundamentalist authoritarian religious groups, said the culture within People of Praise as described by Theill and Williams, including the practice of shunning former members, creates fear so that people are dependent and obedient.

“A person who is in one of these groups has to suppress their own thoughts, feelings, desires that doesn’t align with the dogma,” Hassan said.

He cautioned, however, that Theill’s and Williams’ experiences were from decades ago and not necessarily illustrative of how the group now operates. And current members of People of Praise interviewed by the AP strongly disputed those characterizations.

“There’s a high value on personal freedom,” said Clark, the Trinity School director in Oregon.

She said she had never heard of some of the practices the former members detailed to the AP, such as micromanaging finances or handing over paychecks. She grew emotional when she recounted the sacrifices people in the group make for each other as part of their covenant, like the case of a man known for helping his fellow members move, who was in turn cared for by group members as he died.

“I’ve never been asked to do anything against my own free will,” said Clark, a member of the group for 25 years. “I have never been dominated or controlled by a man.”

Thomas Csordas, an anthropology professor at University of California San Diego, has studied the religious movement that includes People of Praise. He said such communities are conservative, authoritarian, hierarchical and patriarchal.

But, he said, in his view, the group’s leaders are unlikely to exert influence over Barrett’s judicial decisions.

Coney, Barrett’s father, said the culture of female submission described by some former members was based on misunderstandings of the group’s teachings.

“I can’t comment on why they believe that. But it is certainly not a correct interpretation of our life,” he said. “We’re people who love each other and support each other in their Christian life, trying to follow the Lord.”

As a lawyer himself, he rejected the notion that his daughter’s religious beliefs will unduly influence her opinions if she is confirmed to the high court.

“I think she’s a super lawyer and she will apply the law as opposed to any of her beliefs,” he said. “She will follow the law.”

One wonders how all of this will come out during the confirmation hearing.   Frankly it is none of the Congress's business.

 

[swordfish]

58 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women: https://apnews.com/article/new-orleans-donald-trump-amy-coney-barrett-us-supreme-court-courts-1be61f7c3427e41326038e5cdab54839

One wonders how all of this will come out during the confirmation hearing.   Frankly it is none of the Congress's business.

 

If you thought the Kavanaugh saga was bad, just wait.....They will hit the 2 things they despise the most, family unity and faith.  The smear is already starting, she's a cult member who believes in corporal punishment, a religious fanatic and needs to have her biological and adopted kids taken away,  (IMHO) the left will mobilize an attack on her we haven't seen the likes of yet.....

[Muda69]

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

If you thought the Kavanaugh saga was bad, just wait.....They will hit the 2 things they despise the most, family unity and faith.  The smear is already starting, she's a cult member who believes in corporal punishment, a religious fanatic and needs to have her biological and adopted kids taken away,  (IMHO) the left will mobilize an attack on her we haven't seen the likes of yet.....

I'm also sure they will try the angle of "how can you accept a SCOTUS nomination from a POTUS who has obviously committed so many crimes and thumbs his nose at the Constitution practically every day?"

[Bobref]

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

If you thought the Kavanaugh saga was bad, just wait.....They will hit the 2 things they despise the most, family unity and faith.  The smear is already starting, she's a cult member who believes in corporal punishment, a religious fanatic and needs to have her biological and adopted kids taken away,  (IMHO) the left will mobilize an attack on her we haven't seen the likes of yet.....

You really think they’ll have the stomach for attacking a woman nominee the way they went after Kavanaugh?

[swordfish]

3 hours ago, Bobref said:

You really think they’ll have the stomach for attacking a woman nominee the way they went after Kavanaugh?

Just my opinion they will, but I hope not.  Some Democrat Senators are not even going to extend the courtesy of an in-person meeting ahead of the hearing.

[DanteEstonia]

9 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women: https://apnews.com/article/new-orleans-donald-trump-amy-coney-barrett-us-supreme-court-courts-1be61f7c3427e41326038e5cdab54839

One wonders how all of this will come out during the confirmation hearing.   Frankly it is none of the Congress's business.

 

It is; I don't want to be ruled from Rome. 

[Muda69]

42 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

It is; I don't want to be ruled from Rome. 

You may have somewhat of a point if we were talking about a Catholic POTUS,  but a Catholic Supreme Court Justice?  Do you truly believe Ms. Coney Barret would take marching orders from the Pope?

 

[DanteEstonia]

1 minute ago, Muda69 said:

Do you truly believe Ms. Coney Barret would take marching orders from the Pope?

Yes.

[Bobref]

3 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

You may have somewhat of a point if we were talking about a Catholic POTUS,  but a Catholic Supreme Court Justice?  Do you truly believe Ms. Coney Barret would take marching orders from the Pope?

 

 

1 minute ago, DanteEstonia said:

Yes.

😂🤣😄😁😆😝🤪

[sr1]

8 hours ago, DanteEstonia said:

It is; I don't want to be ruled from Rome. 

That is what a lot of people feared when JFK was running for President.

[Bobref]

2 hours ago, sr1 said:

That is what a lot of people feared when JFK was running for President.

And, unfortunately, it seems like we haven’t come very far in terms of religious tolerance in 60 yrs.

And I have to laugh at the idea that someone, even the pope, is going to make a puppet out of an associate justice of the Supreme Court. @DanteEstonia apparently hasn’t met too many federal judges. No one tells them anything. 😜

[DanteEstonia]

5 hours ago, sr1 said:

That is what a lot of people feared when JFK was running for President.

 

3 hours ago, Bobref said:

And, unfortunately, it seems like we haven’t come very far in terms of religious tolerance in 60 yrs.

... and that's because there's 450 years of history that shows how Catholics behave. 

Fun fact- my grandfather was a lifelong New Deal Democrat who voted for Nixon in 1960, and only in 1960, because he couldn't make himself vote for Kennedy. 

Edited September 30, 2020 by DanteEstonia

[Bobref]

2 hours ago, DanteEstonia said:

... and that's because there's 450 years of history that shows how Catholics behave. 

Even if that sort of generalization had any validity whatsoever, we’re not talking about “how Catholics behave.” We’re talking about how one person behaves in her profession, and she happens to be Catholic. Do you think all anti-Catholics, such as yourself, are so predictable on the wide range of issues that come across the SCOTUS plate? Why would you think Catholics are?

If you’re talking about “hot button” Catholic issues such as abortion, and whether we can fire gay teachers from our Catholic schools, do you think she gets a call on the Vatican hotline with chapter and verse on what the’s supposed to say, and how she’s supposed to rule?

Is your white hood back from the cleaner’s yet?

[swordfish]

[DanteEstonia]

2 hours ago, Bobref said:

Is your white hood back from the cleaner’s yet?

It's sitting undisturbed in my great-grandfather's trunk.

You asked a question, you got an answer. 

[Muda69]

8 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

It's sitting undisturbed in my great-grandfather's trunk.

You asked a question, you got an answer. 

Is the direct telephone line from the Pope to Ms. Coney Barrett's office a white phone?

 

[Muda69]

If Amy Coney Barrett Has To Apologize for Saying Sexual 'Preference,' Does Joe Biden?

https://reason.com/2020/10/13/amy-coney-barrett-sexual-preference-joe-biden-confirmation-hearings-hirono/

Quote

At Tuesday's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.) asked Barrett if she would roll back protections for LGBT citizens. Barrett responded that she "never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference and would not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference."

For many progressives, this was a bad answer. That's because the term sexual preference is apparently offensive: The preferred term is sexual orientation.

"Barrett's use of 'sexual preference' alarmed many viewers, myself included, for good reason," wrote Slate's Mark Joseph Stern. "The archaic phrase suggests that sexuality is a choice, that gay and bisexual people simply prefer to partner with people of the same sex—a preference that, with enough willpower, can be changed."

Barrett's use of preference didn't just irk Slate magazine writers and the wokest of the woke on Twitter: Two Democratic senators—Hawaii's Mazie Hirono and New Jersey's Cory Booker—brought this up with her during their remarks. Hirono accused Barrett of using "outdated and offensive" terminology. Echoing the progressive parlance, Booker said Barrett had implied that being gay was not an immutable characteristic. The nominee repeatedly apologized, saying that this was not her intention.

Here's a question: If it's always and automatically wrong to use the term sexual preference, should former Vice President Joe Biden apologize for his outdated and offensive terminology? During a roundtable discussion in May, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate promised to "rebuild the backbone of this country, the middle class, but this time bring everybody along regardless of color, sexual preference, their backgrounds." Was Biden implying that he thinks being gay is a choice, or was he just using a term that is obviously, in many contexts, a synonym for sexual orientation, just as Barrett was?

It's true that the American Psychological Association has expressed a preference (ha!) for the term sexual orientation, believing that it does not imply "choice" in the same way that preference does. But of course, the word orientation can also express a choice: One's political orientation is a choice. Similarly, a preference isn't always a choice—an aversion to some foods and a preference for others can be quite the immutable characteristic!

So while it's conceivably the case that the term sexual preference can be deployed in a delegitimizing way, repeatedly pressing Barrett on her choice of words here was a cheap shot. By all means, senators should grill her on her judicial philosophy and how she will apply it to LGBT legal issues, but they don't need to play language police with respect to terms that are plainly synonymous.

 

More politically correct bullcrap.

 

[Bobref]

The ABA has given ACB their highest recommendation: “Well qualified.”

[Muda69]

16 minutes ago, Bobref said:

The ABA has given ACB their highest recommendation: “Well qualified.”

Just curious if the ABA has every given anything other than a "Well qualified" recommendation to a SCOTUS candidate?

 

[DE]

ACB is wonderful.  She will do very well.  

[Bobref]

51 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Just curious if the ABA has every given anything other than a "Well qualified" recommendation to a SCOTUS candidate?

 

Oh yes. In my memory Nixon’s nominations of Harold Carswell and Clement Haynsworth, and Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork, all received less than “well-qualified” recommendations from the ABA. None were confirmed. The history of the relationship between the ABA committee that does this, the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch, is really interesting. https://fedsoc-cms-public.s3.amazonaws.com/update/pdf/xcAhFnS5JIWziowTf4xXLdBt3dn82UcgJxcrN33x.pdf

[Muda69]

Chasing Amy : https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/chasing-amy/

Quote

This week it was A. C. B. versus I.C.P.: Insane Clown Posse. Poised, graceful, unflappable, unbeatable, Judge Amy Coney Barrett sat patiently as one idiotic question after another was flung in her general direction, each time by a Democrat convinced he or she had come up with a “Gotcha!” for the ages. Pat Leahy (I.C.P., Vt.) asked whether a president must obey a court order. As though explaining this to a toddler, Barrett replied, “The Supreme Court can’t control what the president obeys.” Mazie Hirono (I.C.P., Hawaii) asked whether Barrett had ever sexually assaulted anyone and scolded the judge for using the term “sexual preference,” which has just this week been declared offensive by I.C.P. fans but had previously been used by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Joe Biden, and many other members and allies of the I.C.P. movement. Cory Booker (I.C.P., N.J.) asked whether Barrett condemned white supremacy, and when she said yes, he said he wished the president would say that, although the president already has said that, and Booker’s wishes are none of the Supreme Court’s business anyway, unless he wishes the high Court to apply the Constitution, which seems unlikely.

 

Hey, kids! Did you know “climate change” is in the U.S. Constitution? It’s right there in Article VIII, Section 4, right after VIII.3, “White Trousers After Labor Day, Wearing Of” (punishable by life imprisonment without parole, unless you live in Miami) but before VIII.5, “How Long You Are Legally Required to Wait Before Honking Your Horn at the Guy in Front of You Who Didn’t Move When the Light Turned Green” (three seconds, except in New York City, where it’s one-tenth of a second).

The Constitutional Climate Change section was adduced by one Kamala Harris of California, who as it turns out is a credentialed lawyer (!), a former prosecutor (!!), a U.S. senator (!!!) and, after Joe Biden calls a lid on being chief executive, very possibly our president in a couple of years (!!!!). Harris would, of course, be a historic president: the first I.C.P. member ever to serve as the head of the executive branch. If I indicate surprise it is merely because it seems to me unusual that a person in Harris’s position should not understand how the United States system of government works, to wit: Congress passes bills, a president signs them into law, and the Supreme Court either allows them to stand or strikes them down if they run afoul of the Constitution.

Yet Harris and the rest of the I.C.P. asked Barrett 653 versions of the following question: “Given that [liberal policy position X] is a wonderful idea, shouldn’t we pretend that it is already required by the Constitution?” Barrett must have been sorely tempted to walk over to each senator who asked this question and slap him or her with a large mackerel. Barrett not only deserves a Supreme Court seat, she deserves a Tony award for maintaining a straight face through three days of Moron Theater.

After asking Barrett whether COVID-19 was contagious, and whether smoking causes cancer, Harris asked — zing! — whether “You believe that climate change is happening and is threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink?” Never mind that “climate change” is not the same thing as the pollution that is forever threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink. Whether the judge believes “that climate change is happening” is no more pertinent to Barrett’s jurisprudence than whether she believes in putting ketchup on scrambled eggs. Barrett’s job is to apply the law, and if any climate-change legislation runs afoul of the Constitution, she would presumably vote to void it, just as she would presumably vote to uphold any climate-change legislation permitted by the Constitution. Yet Harris imagined that she was luring Barrett into a devastating trap. Barrett declined: “You have asked me a series of questions that are completely uncontroversial . . . and then trying to analogize that to elicit an opinion from me that is on a very contentious matter of public debate and I will not do that. I will not express a view on a matter of public policy, especially one that is politically controversial.” I would have preferred the mackerel-slapping treatment, but this amounted to saying, “I didn’t put on a nice dress to get down and play in your sandbox of idiocy, Senator,” which worked just as well.

Harris is the special kind of idiot who believes that some entity called science, or possibly Science, has resolved all questions relating to climate change (how much subsidy money should we pour into solar-panel manufacturers and which companies should qualify and under what conditions? Hang on, I think it’s on page 434 of my Big Book of Science). So she also pressed the question of whether Barrett would defer to the scientists about climate change. This would have been an ideal moment for Barrett to dramatically rise to her feet and strike a large gong set up for the purpose behind her, like Rex Reed on the fabled Gong Show, to indicate that it was time for Harris swiftly to exit the premises in a cloud of shame. Instead, Barrett ignored the stupid question and gently guided Harris back to the law by saying, “If a case comes before me involving environmental regulation I will certainly apply all applicable law, deferring when the law requires me to. And as I’m sure you know, Senator Harris, the Administrative Procedure Act does require courts to defer to agency fact-finding and to agency regulations when they’re supported by substantial evidence.” Got that, Senator?

The iconic moment of a week the Democrats spent trying and failing to set a fire in the national dumpster came when Senator John Cornyn asked Barrett to hold up the cheat sheet she had brought along that enabled her to give such cogent, astute answers to every question, no matter how vapid, and she instead smiled and held up a perfectly clean, blank notepad. Barrett had somehow managed not to cover the pad with giant question marks, clown caricatures or sharp queries such as, “How did Mazie Hirono graduate from Georgetown Law?” As she held it up for the cameras, the notepad provided a picture to the nation of every good point the Democrats had made, every black mark the committee had managed to attach to her name, and every reason she should not be confirmed.

Yep, Ms. Barrett completely owned all those morons.