Judge Amy Coney Barrett listens during her confirmation hearing. (Photo credit: KEVIN DIETSCH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Judge Amy Coney Barrett has angered the left: they’ve tried desperately to destroy her, but they never laid a glove on her. Pundits and activists reviewed her scholarship, which is impressive by any measure, and found nothing to use against her. Similarly, they scoured her legal opinions, but found nothing that would disqualify her. What’s left? Her personal life.
They really wanted to find some dirt on Barrett, but they came up empty. Unlike some of the senators who grilled her, she’s clean. Sen. Mazie Hirono showed what she is made of when she asked the judge if she had ever been a sexual predator. It accomplished nothing, except to discredit Hirono. Coming off a tale of vicious lies told about Brett Kavanaugh, some on the left resorted to condemning Barrett for being a model mother.
If this sounds crazy, read the screed by Lyz Lenz in Glamour. In the matter of a few pages, she refers to “mother” or “motherhood” 55 times, almost always in the kind of snide way we have come to expect from those who see mothers as “breeders” (often out of envy). This is especially true of white mothers who embody the best attributes of motherhood.
Referring to Barrett’s status as a mother of seven children, Lenz contends that those who support her have “boiled her down to a single identity and everything she does or will do flows from that.” Wrong. Her supporters know she has multiple identities and multiple gifts. It is her foes, like Lenz, who treat her as a “bare foot in the kitchen” type of woman.
Lenz is a single mother, an LGBTQ proponent, and a former evangelical. That pretty much says it all. It surely explains why she sees in Barrett someone who “remind[s] the public that a woman’s worth is primarily a measure of her reproductive capabilities.” No one thinks that way except those who are livid over the sight of a pro-life mother, with impeccable scholarly and characterological credentials, poised to ascend to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Like many young white women these days, Lenz is riddled with guilt. When they are not confessing their sin of whiteness in a racial sensitivity program, or engaging in street violence at a “peaceful” demonstration, they are lashing out at well-adjusted white women. For example, she takes a stab at Kellyanne Conway—out of the blue—simply because she is another pro-Trump, pro-life mother. Oh yes, she is also white. Strike three.
Like other alienated women who despise Barrett, Lenz is furious that the Trump nominee is supposedly benefiting from the trail blazed by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They need to get over it. Ginsburg was a distinguished jurist. So is Barrett. It is childlike to think that whoever succeeds Ginsburg should be her clone. Moreover, Barrett owes more to Antonin Scalia, whose jurisprudential philosophy she shares, than Ginsburg.
What is really strange about this hit piece on Barrett is that it appears in Glamour. Not too long ago, this magazine entertained normal women waiting to get their hair done.
Now it entertains women who hate white mothers.
There is nothing normal about that.
Bill Donohue is president and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization. He was awarded his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University and is the author of eight books and many articles.
