In the same way second lady Karen Pence was attacked by the media in 2019 for teaching part-time at a Christian school that held to mainstream Christian doctrine, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is now facing blowback for having been involved in a school that holds to the biblical belief that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.
Barrett, nominated Saturday to fill the high court seat left vacant by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, served on the board of trustees at The Trinity School in South Bend, Indiana, from 2015-17, according to a Politico report.
New from South Bend for @POLITICOMag: How Amy Coney Barrett’s People of Praise helped shape a city. New details on the group’s South Bend presence here. https://t.co/vshSyX2Q0o
— Adam Wren (@adamwren) September 27, 2020
At the center of the article is the school’s “clear, conservative Christian set of values, including discouraging sex before marriage and cautioning students who experience same-sex attraction from ‘prematurely interpret[ing]’ any particular emotional experience as identity-defining.”
The Politico writer, Adam Wren, who has a background in evangelical education, has insisted the article is not a “hit piece,” but a “nuanced look at a religious community in South Bend and what it means in the community.”
Wren argued in his piece that the school was “at odds with American law” during the time Barrett, now a judge of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, was on the board. He was referring to the fact that the school’s “cultural statement” continued to reflect a mainstream religious conviction against homosexuality even after the Supreme Court’s decision in 2015 to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. The statement (now blocked online) has since been amended to read:
We understand marriage to be a legal and committed relationship between a man and a woman and believe that the only proper place for sexual activity is within these bounds of conjugal love. Outside of marriage so understood, we believe that sexual activity (whether heterosexual or homosexual) is not in keeping with God’s plan for human sexuality.
The Politico article came the same evening The Washington Post published a piece expressing worry over Barrett’s faith, much like anti-Catholic Americans attacked then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960.
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