CNN host Chris Cuomo declared Tuesday that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is no “ordinary Catholic” and that she has a “fundamentalist” approach to her faith that many Christians don’t share.
“She does have an affiliation in a religious organization, which I think makes her different than most Catholics,” the prime-time host said while interviewing Sen. Mazie Hirono following the second day of Judge Barrett’s confirmation hearings.
“I think that her faith is by design more central to her value system and her behavior and thoughts than it would be for just an ordinary Catholic who doesn’t belong to People of Praise,” he said.
Mrs. Hirono stressed that Judge Barrett’s faith is “irrelevant” and that it’s her positions on certain issues that matter.
Later in the program, while interviewing former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, Mr. Cuomo said, “Faith, doesn’t matter if you have faith, it matters about your positions. Fine. You’re a Christian. I’m a Christian.
“She belongs to an organization called People of Praise,” he continued. “You know this. It is a devout organization. The people who sign up, especially the women, sign on to very specific behavioral covenants that, at a minimum, make a man a divinely-inspired ruler of a family.
“This is more than just every Sunday,” he added. “This is more than just a moral backstop in her life. This is a fundamentalist approach to her faith. Does that matter?”
Like Mrs. Hirono, Mr. Buttigieg said he didn’t care about Judge Barrett’s devoutness but rather how it shaped her judicial philosophy.
“So, I get it. It’s not about her faith,” Mr. Cuomo responded. “It’s about the reasoning that she’s going to apply to the law. However, you can argue that there is a conflation here, because her faith does shape how she sees certain things that are a function of the law. I don’t know how it can’t give in what she has signed onto with this organization.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono says expanding the Supreme Court is just one option she’d like considered in terms of “court reform.”
“Increasing the size is only one…I’d like to see some really strong ethics provisions…there are a number of ways we can try to balance the Supreme Court.” pic.twitter.com/G9nx2Oipck
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) October 14, 2020
Pete Buttigieg says in nominating Amy Coney Barrett, Republicans “seem to be wanting to put marriage equality back on the table.” https://t.co/NiuIl1zCVa pic.twitter.com/qGFKYlGzVx
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) October 14, 2020
