Here is a curious demographic fact.
The current make-up of the US Supreme Court is dominated by Roman Catholics. Of the eight justices on the Supreme Court, five are Roman Catholic, one was born Catholic, but is now attending an Episcopal church, and the remaining two are Jews. This, of course, does not reflect the demographic makeup of the United States at all. In other words, there are no Baptists, Methodists, Calvinists, Muslims, and so on. Basically, we just have some Roman Catholics, an Episcopalian and some Jews. That’s it.
The Roman Catholics on the court are John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor. The Jews are Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, two of the three liberals. The Episcopalian/Roman Catholic is Neil Gorsuch. I use the slash, because according to one source, Gorsuch has not been especially clear about whether he still considers himself a Catholic or not.
To match this up with political ideology, of the five and a half Roman Catholics on the court, four and a half are conservatives. Sonia Sotomayor is the one liberal. So, if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed, she would become the sixth Roman Catholic on the court. That give us five solid conservative (politically anyway) Roman Catholics on the court. In other words, the conservative Roman Catholics would have a five to four voting majority on the US Supreme court.
Maybe its just me. But giving a group of individuals with shared religious and political affiliations power over what is and is not legal in this country just doesn’t seem right. Belonging to a minority religion myself, it makes me a bit nervous. This is even more problematic for me given that Amy Coney Barrett appears to be a Christian theocrat.
One more thing.
You know how there are times when you just know the answer before you look it up. Well, having noticed the little demographic oddity above, I decided to lookup the biography of one Leonard Leo on Wikipedia. You know, the Leonard Leo who heads the Federalist Society and was instrumental in the nominations of Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and, now, probably Amy Coney Barrett. Yes, I looked him up. Well, it turns out he is a Roman Catholic as well. He has even served as National Co-Chairman of Catholic Outreach for the Republican National Committee. He also served as Catholic Strategist on George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign.
I wonder what that could mean.