Conservative Christian women laud Barrett
Judge seen as excelling in demanding profession even as she makes her Catholic faith and family a priority
Ruth Malhotra had just arrived in Florida for a vacation with some girlfriends from high school and their families when President Donald Trump was scheduled to introduce his next nominee for the Supreme Court on Saturday afternoon. A college football game was on the television at their rented beach house. “Turn off football and turn on CSPAN!” she told her friends. “We’ve got to watch this; this is historic.”
Malhotra, 36, a lifelong evangelical Christian who works in communications for a Christian ministry, has little personal affection for Trump. So she was surprised to find herself tearing up as he introduced Judge Amy Coney Barrett in the Rose Garden, describing her as “a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials, and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.”
Malhotra’s mother was watching at home back in Georgia, and felt a spark of recognition in Trump’s description of a selfless, family-oriented woman who reveres the Constitution. Her mother texted: “Trump’s description of Amy reminds me of you.”
Barrett’s nomination pleased many conservatives, who see in her legal credentials and judicial philosophy the potential for her to be the next Antonin Scalia, a solidly conservative presence on the court for decades.
But for many conservative Christian women, the thrill of the nomination is more personal. Barrett, for them, is a new kind of icon — one they have not seen before in American cultural and political life: a woman who is both unabashedly ambitious and deeply religious, who has excelled at the heights of a demanding profession even as she speaks openly about prioritizing her conservative Catholic faith and family. Barrett has seven children, including two children adopted from Haiti and a young son with Down syndrome.
“I found some personal inspiration in Ginsburg — you couldn’t not,” said Mary Hallan FioRito, a conservative Catholic lawyer who graduated from law school in the early 1990s, referring to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “She made me know this is possible. It won’t be easy, but it’s possible. Amy Barrett is the perfect replacement for Ginsburg because she, too, in a different way, is saying, ‘This is possible.’ ”
Though Barrett’s nomination has inspired pride in Catholic circles, it has also generated enthusiasm among conservative evangelical Protestants. Barrett belongs to an ecumenical Christian community in South Bend, Ind., whose worship practices draw from some Protestant traditions.
“Representation matters very, very much,” said Chelsea Patterson Sobolik, a 29-year-old evangelical who works as policy director for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. The fact that
Barrett is an adoptive parent feels significant to Sobolik, an adoptee herself who is now pursuing an international adoption with her husband.
Malhotra, who has been following Barrett’s career for several years, said she saw in Barrett the attributes of women she admired in different spheres of her own life, but had not seen displayed on such a big stage before.
“She represented the women I go church with, while also representing the professors I had in graduate school,” she said. “She seemed to be the whole package.”
Although Trump is notably more popular with men than women, conservative women are a critical voting bloc for the president as he faces a challenging election in November. The president’s advisers hope the selection of Barrett will energize his base; while it is unclear yet how much difference the nomination will make to voters who are already inclined to vote for him, it has added a jolt of energy in some circles.
Several women reported participating in enthusiastic group text chains about Barrett, who they sometimes refer to as “ACB”; her name comes up in video calls with friends, in the preschool pickup line, and in their own prayers. And some reported a feeling of protectiveness as the judge and her family enter what will probably be a bruising confirmation battle and sprawling culture-war skirmish.
To Barrett’s fans, she is proof that women can be as ambitious maternally as they are professionally.
“She’s someone who is challenging a mainstream consensus that there’s a certain way that women need to live their lives in order to succeed,” said Gabrielle Girgis, 30, who recently completed a doctorate in politics at Princeton University, is Catholic and has two young daughters. “She represents the fact that not all women need to think the same way about the raising of children and family planning.”
Girgis, who has a hearing disability, said she had a special fondness for professional women like Barrett who “make space in their lives for children with disabilities.”
Barrett first came to national attention in 2017, when Trump nominated her to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Several senators directly questioned her in her confirmation hearing about whether her Catholic faith would influence her decisions from the bench. “The dogma lives loudly within you,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told her.
That moment was galvanizing for women who saw themselves in Barrett.
“Among Catholic professional women who are moms, it just instantly resonated,” said FioRito, who lives in Chicago. “There’s such a groundswell for Amy, and a lot of it came out that anger and resentment for how she was treated.”
After the 2017 hearings, T-shirts and tchotchkes emblazoned with the slogan, “The dogma lives loudly within me,” proliferated on customization websites. A friend sent FioRito a mug that featured the phrase and Barrett’s portrait.
For women with large families, Barrett’s appearance in the Rose Garden on Saturday with her seven children, whom she called “my greatest joy,” was especially poignant.