On top of a global pandemic and an election year, we had a small war for control of the Supreme Court in 2020. Woof. How is that relevant? Well, did you know Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett does CrossFit? Let’s unpack it.
You probably haven’t missed the fact that it was an election year here in the United States and the general opinion on both sides of the aisle is that was an election which would define the heart and the soul of the country for decades to come. Lives are on the line, healthcare is on the line, the environment is on the line, and as if we didn’t need another thing to worry about, there was a battle for a Supreme Court seat after the sad death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
If you haven’t followed what’s been going on with the Supreme Court the last four years, here’s a quick catch-up:
- Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in February 2016.
- One month later, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s vacancy.
- Then begins a long fight in the Republican-majority senate, with Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnel saying appointing a nominee 237 days before an election shouldn’t be allowed.
- Merrick Garland’s nomination was effectively blocked, then the position was filled by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch after Trump was appointed President by the Electoral College.
- With the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018, Trump put up a second nominee, now Justice Brett Kavanaugh. This drove a fiery confirmation process as numerous allegations were made about Kavanaugh’s sexual assault of women and alcoholism.
- Then, only 45 days before the upcoming election and only seven days after the death of Justice Ginsburg, Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett. Senator Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnel, once blocking a nomination 237 days before an election, then moved forward with Coney Barrett’s confirmation with less than 30 days left.
But those are just the facts, and not really the focus of this episode. Amy Coney Barrett. Anti-women’s rights, anti-birth control, pro-gun – her and I disagree funamentally on just about anything. But I was reading an article in TIME and figured I’d share part of it. TIME writes:
“Barrett and her husband Jesse, a lawyer, have seven children in South Bend, Indiana. Two of their children are adopted from Haiti and the youngest has Down syndrome. With a lot to juggle at home, the Barretts take turns going to work out in the morning—at a high intensity, CrossFit-style gym they both favor—and Amy takes the early shift, with classes sometimes starting in the 5AM hour, friends who go to the same gym say. Then Amy can come home and help get her kids up for the day, which once included a ritual with her son with Down syndrome in which she’d carry him downstairs by piggyback every morning.”
It’s just a reminder that sometimes you can dislike everything about a person’s ideologies but know they are still a good person managing their life and their community in the best ways they know how. I don’t fault Amy Coney Barrett for how she was nominated and I will likely disagree with every way she interprets the US constitution.
But it seems like she’s a good human. And I can live with that.
