“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
Cult: “a religious group often living together, whose beliefs are considered extreme or strange by many people.” (Cambridge Dictionary)
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a member of the Supreme Court’s anti-choice ‘Gang of Five,’ has made no secret of her profound Catholic faith. But she has been less forthcoming about her association with a cult. More than just a religious fundamentalist, she is a member of the secretive group ‘People of Praise’. And once served them as a ‘Laypastoral Women’s Leader’. A position the group called ‘Handmaiden’ until 2017. (It’s no coincidence that the series “The Handmaid’s Tale” premiered in April 2017)
Now a leaked video of a recent private People of Praise event reveals the subservience the organization demands from its female members. In the video, marking the cult's 50th anniversary, Dorothy Ranaghan — wife of one of the sect’s co-founders, Kevin Ragnahan — explains how some female followers wept uncontrollably in reaction to the group’s early teachings on “headship” and the “roles of men and women”. The organization’s dogma claims that God divinely ordained men as the “head” of the family and gave them dominance over women.
According to Dorothy Ranaghan,
“Some of the women – who are still in my women’s group, as a matter of fact – were wearing sunglasses all the time, because they were always crying and would have to hold on to their chairs every time somebody started teaching, because ‘What are we going to hear this time?”
She added as the audience and her interviewer laughed: “But it all worked out just fine in the end.”
In short, the brainwashing worked. And the newly initiated cultists accepted their changed reality. Notably, her final sentence is reminiscent of the last lines in Orwell’s ‘1984’ as Winston Smith acknowledges his complete subjugation to his oppressors:
“O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself.
He loved Big Brother.”
Bearing this in mind, consider that Barrett lived in the Ranaghan household while she attended law school at Notre Dame. However, she is intelligent enough to know how her association with the Christian charismatic sect would look. Barrett has never publicly disclosed or discussed her membership in the cult. And she denies that their antediluvian ideas on gender roles influence her judicial thinking.
On the contrary, she has said she is a “faithful Catholic” whose religious beliefs would not “bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge." But then she ruled to overturn Roe, an act that only springs from religious beliefs — which have no place in a country established as officially non-religious.
The problem with religious fundamentalists is that while they can say their religious beliefs will not prejudice their thinking, they are either lying to us — or to themselves. It is the same psychology as a cop denying that racism played a part when they shot an unarmed Black man. Would the cell phone have looked like a gun if a white guy had been carrying it?
Barrett’s association with People of Praise is not a happenstance. Her father was a member of the cult’s all-male senior management when she was a girl in Louisiana, and her mother was a handmaiden. They steeped her from birth in the bitter acid of misogyny and talk of a woman existing only to produce children.
In a tract from the early days of the organization, Ranaghan explains this,
“The child in the womb expands the mother's body, changing its dimensions. As her body yields, so do the borders of privacy and selfishness. Her very existence gives to another. If we look around us at the women who we most admire, we will often see that they give and give and give of themselves, that they seem to have boundless time, energy, and service to give.
They are not private persons but are surrendered and available to care for others. Pregnancy teaches a woman that others have a claim on her very person for the service of life.”
The lesson is clear - and Barret has learned it well. Women do not own their bodies. And now this fanatic has burdened women with her personal beliefs. She presents constitutional arguments for her right-stripping decision. But the Constitution in the hands of a zealot is like the Bible to a Christian fundamentalist. They can twist it to support whatever flavor of bigotry they are serving.
And Barrett is likely just getting warmed up. In an internal magazine, the cult outlined its thinking on marriage,
“Governments do have good reason to support and encourage this kind of [heterosexual] marriage because they have a vested interest in producing future generations of well-informed citizens. Supporting traditional marriage is a time-honored way for societies to ensure that children are well cared for.”
Is gay marriage next on the chopping block? And as Barrett is a fundamentalist Catholic, you have to think that contraception will also have a date with the executioner.
After that, who knows? School prayer? Mandatory creationism class? An American 'Index Librorum Prohibitorum'. Criminalizing fornication and adultery? (Just kidding on the last one. Too many evangelicals would be going to jail.)
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