What is your impression of Amy Coney Barrett?

[milestogo]

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barret asked a team of ACLU lawyers advocating for trans rights if trans people had ever really been discriminated against. The court on Wednesday held oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a landmark case originating from Tennessee that could decide just how far the federal government has to go, if at all, to protect the rights of trans people. In 2023, Senate Bill 1 became law in Tennessee, banning hormone therapy and puberty blockers for minors and imposing civil penalties on doctors who don’t fall in line. Skrmetti is challenging S.B. 1, but the conservative justices don’t seem to be having any of it.

“One question I have is, at least as far as I can think of, we don’t have a history—that I know of—we don’t have a history of de jure discrimination against transgender people,” Coney Barrett said during oral arguments on Wednesday morning. “You point out in your brief that in the last three years there might have been these laws, but before that we might have had private societal discrimination.… Is there a history that I don’t know about where we have de jure discrimination?”

By de jure Coney Barrett means “federally mandated,” and she goes on to note that other minority groups have experienced that kind of discrimination, while to her knowledge trans people haven’t.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar responded immediately. “Historical discrimination against transgender people may not have been reflected in the laws. But I think there’s no dispute that there is a broad history here and it hasn’t just been confined to private actors,” she said. “I think that if you actually looked at the facts there’s a wealth of evidence to suggest that transgender people throughout history have been subjected to violence, discrimination, and maybe lost employment opportunities, housing opportunities.”

https://newrepublic.com/post/189029/amy-coney-barrett-question-supreme-court-transgender-case-hearing

[no_hypocrisy]

1. One: She isn't a bona fide legal scholar, and

Two: She isn't one for fine distinctions in her analysis. She paints with a wide brush.

[Walleye]

2. Ms Justice, What are these stupid bathroom bills about. You need to concern yourself with state laws as well.

Slavery was never a federally mandated law. I remember in Amy Coney Bryant’s hearing, Senator Booker asked her if she’d ever stood in line more than a half an hour to vote. She was totally baffled by the question. She looked at him like he was speaking a different language. That’s who she is.

[milestogo]

3. She seems to have led a very sheltered existence.

So sheltered that she claims to never have even seen discrimination, much less experienced it.

[Walleye]

6. That is one main problem with Republicans. They don't accept other peoples experiences as legitimate.

[mountain grammy]

15. Exactly!

They dishonestly believe everyone in America has the same rights and freedoms and opportunities.

[Walleye]

22. There is no end to the crazy fantasies these guys believe. They think the cities are in ruins.

[Diamond_Dog]

17. Speaker Johnson making bathroom rules in the Capitol Building doesn't cross her mind?

[Walleye]

19. Oh, they will propose a federal law before too long to cover the whole country about it. And now they think they're

Interested in women’s sports. They were against title IX all along.

[marble falls]

4. Traffic court level expertise. Stong point? She didn't do this ...

?si=Y1E1GfkU-AkyPPLm

[sop]

5. She seems like a pleasant, well-meaning, church-going christian lady.

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.” - Steven Weinberg

[cachukis]

7. Naive.

[Dem4life1234]

8. Shes not qualified

Probably only brought to the court because she's young and easily manipulated.

[milestogo]

9. And because she is rabidly anti-choice

and has seven children to boot.

[voris820]

32. For political reasons...

to help Trump try to win in 2020. She became known in a hearing for being a lower court judge because of an exchange with Diane Feinstein who said "the dogma lives loud in you" or something like that. That immediately made her a hero for the religious right. Trump needs the religious right to win elections so that is why she was then nominated to the supreme court. She is otherwise minimally qualified.

[CurtEastPoint]

10. Well, CONEHEAD, 'to your knowledge' shows you to be an ignorant fucking POS

[Solly Mack]

11. That is one thick bubble she lives in. Privilege.

[usonian]

12. Doing the Lord's work.

Purging our White Christian land of "undesirables"

[Kaleva]

13. Freepers hate her

[Walleye]

21. They hate everybody except Donald Trump

[Maeve]

14. She doesn't hide her light, she's just that dim

Sheltered, pampered, out of touch with reality as others know it and so assumes it isn't there

[Voltaire2]

16. She is a member of an insane cult. Nt.

[jalan48]

18. I think she's got some nutty in her.

[usonian]

20. Sorry. I don't do impressions.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

24. That she's ignorant of religious history, particularly her own.

[MineralMan]

25. I Reckon Nowt To Her!

In the Yorkshire sense of it.

[Callie1979]

26. She LIED during her confirmation.

[dchill]

27. A remotely-operated Christofascist Handmaid...

...with an education.

[comradebillyboy]

29. She's been on the wrong side of every bad decision the SC

has made since she was appointed. She's just not as personally abrasive as Thomas or Alito.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

30. Barrett should have never been put onto the SCOTUS

[snot]

31. I don't agree with her on various issues, of course,

but since she's been a Supreme, I've actually found her to be perhaps the most conscientious of the conservative justices. Her opinions (unlike, say, Thomas's or Kavanaugh's) are generally well-reasoned, and she's occasionally bucked a consensus among her fellow conservatives as a result.

Bear in mind that her question about the history of discrimination against trans people might at least partly have been in the nature of a "gimme" – i.e., creating an opportunity for those seeking protection of trans rights to present and discuss that history.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

33. She couldn't name the five freedoms

guaranteed by the First Amendment during her confirmation hearings. Her inability to answer such a basic question proves she doesn't belong in ANY court, let alone the United States Supreme Court.

[Autumn]

34. Your average ignorant, typical , disgusting republican.

[Scrivener7]

35. Opus Dei stooge. Leonard Leo pick.

[Vinca]

36. If she actually asked that question, I'd say she isn't the sharpest tack and lives in lala land.

[ananda]

37. Nothing but complete contempt.

The same as the other GOP justices.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

38. Totally unqualified.