I'm not giving a lot of time or consideration to the hearings to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court judge in the United States/ Her hurried confirmation is one more example of the terribly compromised political system in the States. And it seems that Barrett is doing her best to avoid honest and direct answers to the questions presented to her, which is sad given her conservative Christian values. Didn't Jesus say "let your yes be yes, and your no be no..." in the Sermon on the Mount?
You may have seen or heard that Barrett claims to be an originalist in her judicial philosophy when it comes to interpretation of the US Constitution, supposedly in the manner of the framers and the public at the time it was written. She also describes herself as a textualist, meaning that she interprets the law strictly according to its text without considering the larger goals of the legislators who wrote it.
Plenty of people have noted that these claims are also disingenuous given that slavery was in full sway at the time of the framing of the Constitution, and that some of the framers were slave-owners And women could not vote, nor could they serve as justices of the Supreme Court. The Constitution has been amended numerous times as have laws, for the benefit of the society.
When I heard this I thought of all the people who are conservative Christians who claim to take a literal approach to scripture, yet have all sorts of exceptions to that literalism when it suits their purposes. Through the years I've been scolded for not being a literalist, sometimes quite vocally and even aggressively, by women who apparently missed the verse in the New Testament letter called 1 Timothy which says "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she is to keep silent." I think it's to my credit that I never quoted this verse to them! I have certainly reminded literalist men about the verse, also in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says that one should pluck out an eye rather than lust after another. That one tends to be a show-stopper.
Jurists who respect the law, and Christians who respect scripture, should do their best to understand the original context and culture of their "sacred texts." But it is dishonesty and even idolatry to say that these documents will be interpreted without the perspectives of each successive generation, or without consideration of the benefit and edification of those who take guidance from them in the present moment.
Ah well. Perhaps it's too harsh to label the candidate as Amy Phoney Barrett, but I can't say I'm impressed by her approach. Oh RBG, where are you in our hour of need?
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