The handmaid

Trump has a short list for the slot in the Supreme Court left by RBG's death ... two women are at the top: Amy Coney Barrett and Barbara Lagoa. These are nakedly political choices. Trump is choosing a woman to get the votes of those suburban housewives he's so obsessed with. He is choosing Barret to get the conservative Catholic vote, and Trump gets a twofer in choosing Lagoa - the Catholic vote and the Cuban American vote in Florida.

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump chose Barrett or Lagoa because he and his administration have been inundated with Catholics, from Steve Bannon and Don McGahn to Kellyanne Conway, John Kelly, and Mike Flynn. Both Lagoa and Barrett are pro-life, of course, and one assumes also against equal rights for gay people (aka: religious liberty). I haven't read a lot about Lagoa, but here's a bit more about Barrett ...

She's a conservative Catholic who belongs to a charismatic non-denominational group called People of Praise. The group practices all the slain by the spirit stuff that you'd expect, and applies strict gender roles to its members .... women are not allowed to hold the highest offices in the group, and those who do lead specialized women's activities are deemed "handmaids" (a title recently changed to "woman leade" ;).

The group Barrett belongs to is all about complementarianism: keeping women under men's thumbs. Barrett would fit right in with the pope, the hierarchy of the church, and that minority of trads among the faithful.

But I will emphacize that Barrett and her beliefs do *not* represent most Catholics, and she will not, as a Supreme Court Judge, be speaking for most Catholics. For example, most US Catholics think Roe v Wade should remain the law of the land.

If Barrett is chosen, she will be another example of Trump and his hench-people trying to force an extreme and minority ideology on a country that moved beyond all the badness they embrace.

More reading - Newsweek: How Charismatic Catholic Groups Like Amy Coney Barrett's People of Praise Inspired 'The Handmaid's Tale'