Amy Coney Barrett served for years as a board trustee at Trinity Schools, which barred gay and lesbian teachers and forbid allowing children with same-sex parents.
The AP reports on interviews it had with more than two dozen people who worked at or attended the schools: “They said the community’s teachings have been consistent for decades: Homosexuality is an abomination against God, sex should occur only within marriage and marriage should only be between a man and a woman.”
“Interviewees told the AP that Trinity’s leadership communicated anti-LGBTQ policies and positions in meetings, one-on-one conversations, enrollment agreements, employment agreements, handbooks and written policies — including those in place when Barrett was an active member of the board,” the AP added.
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, reacted to the AP story in a statement provided to Towleroad.
Said David: “Amy Coney Barrett has shown us who she is – someone who is hostile to the rights of LGBTQ people. Her professional actions as a scholar and jurist raise significant concerns about her ability to be impartial and fair when considering cases that impact the LGBTQ community. In her hearing, she shockingly refused to say that landmark Supreme Court cases that decriminalized relationships between LGBTQ people and subsequently legalized marriages for same-sex couples were correctly decided. These cases go to the core of LGBTQ rights and her failure to even recognize their precedential value is enough to disqualify her to serve on the Court.”
“The fact that we have now learned – during a rushed hearing process that should not be occurring – that she held a position atop a network of schools that discriminated against LGBTQ parents and students, serves as yet another warning as to the type of anti-LGBTQ bias that she would bring to the Supreme Court if confirmed,” David continued. “There is no room for hate or discrimination on the Supreme Court. If Barrett is confirmed, our marriages, our families, our health care and our LGBTQ youth would be at risk. This upcoming term and beyond, we expect crucial cases about the future of LGBTQ rights to appear before the Court. Amy Coney Barrett poses a clear threat to any progress we can expect to see from the Court and her record shows she will take every opportunity to oppose us and scale back our rights.”
