Conservatives are not too happy with the latest comments by Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

In her first interview since joining the Supreme Court in 2020, Barrett addressed speculation that the court could reinstitute a ban on gay marriage or make other fundamental changes to the law. 

“It’s not just an opinion poll about whether the Supreme Court thinks something is good or whether the Supreme Court thinks something is bad,” Barrett reportedly told CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell in her first TV interview since joining the Supreme Court in 2020. “What the court is trying to do is see what the American people have decided.”

“The Court should not be imposing its own values on the American people — that’s for the democratic process,” she added.

Reflections

The interview hasn't actually aired yet--it's scheduled to do so on Sunday ahead of her memoir's release, titled  “Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution."

Barrett said she intended the book to help people understand why the Supreme Court tries cases the way it does.

“I think people who criticize the court or who are outside say a lot of different things,” she said. “But again, the point that I make in the book is that we have to tune those things out.”

She described her view as making a distinction between the right to abortion and the right to get married.

Distinction of rights

To her, the rights to marry, engage in sexual intimacy, use birth control and raise children are “fundamental,” while the rights to do business, die by suicide and terminate a pregnancy are not.

“I was a [constitutional] law professor for many years,” she told O’Donnell. “I described the doctrine in the book, and that is the state of the law.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed worry in a podcast interview last month that Obergefell, the ruling that legalized gay marriage, could be overturned.

“It took 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Clinton said. “The Supreme Court will hear a case about gay marriage; my prediction is they will do to gay marriage what they did to abortion — they will send it back to the states.”

The difference between abortion and gay marriage, however, is that it is far more impractical to recognize a marriage in one state but not another than it is to be allowed to get an abortion in one state but not another. Surely the court would recognize this and either reinstitute a national ban or leave it alone altogether--most likely the latter, despite what Clinton thinks.

As far as what Barrett said about the law reflecting or not reflecting American wishes and values, I don't think that's exactly right either. The law cannot simply change with the whims of the majority, but should be consistent and held to a standard.

That's the whole problem with the liberal view of the Constitution--it means nothing if it can change based on public opinion.