Trump nominates an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ woman to the Supreme Court

Donald Trump becomes the first president in U.S. history to nominate a Supreme Court judge during an election. (Polls are open for early voting).

Trump’s pick is Amy Coney Barrett, who will replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Senate intends to approve the nomination before October 26.

Judge Barrett is in many ways the ideological opposite of Justice Ginsburg, who led the court’s liberal wing. She has an unwaveringly conservative voting record in cases that touch on abortion, gun rights, discrimination and immigration. At 48, she would be the youngest justice on the court, with the potential to shape the law for decades to come.
The New York Times

Amy Coney Barrett has been a judge for only three years. She was confirmed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in October 2017 despite having never been a judge. She practiced law for three years before that.

In 2015, she signed a letter stating that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

She criticized Chief Justice John Roberts for helping to uphold the Affordable Care Act, which protects Americans with pre-existing conditions.

She has said that despite Roe v. Wade, there are ways to limit clinics’ abilities to provide abortions.

She gave speeches for the anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a “hate group.”

She said as recently as 2016 that the she believes the Fourteenth Amendment is “possibly illegitimate.” The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equality under the law and the right to due process. It also gives power to the Bill of Rights.

She assisted in Bush v. Gore, the case that overturned the 2000 election and gave the White House to George W. Bush. Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Roberts also assisted in that case.

She and her husband are members of a controversial, transnational religious group called People of the Praise which “adopted Pentecostal practices such as speaking in tongues, belief in prophecy, and divine healing.” Group members make a lifelong commitment to the group and are assigned a personal adviser. According to one member, People of the Praise believes that wives should be subordinate to their husbands. Not much else is known about the group’s operations besides the content they use on their website.