Letters to the Editor: The obsession with Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholicism is un-American

To the editor: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), when she expressed concerns about Amy Coney Barrett’s Roman Catholic religious “dogma” during her confirmation to the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017, was reminded by people who knew our Constitution well about Article VI. (“If Amy Coney Barrett is nominated and confirmed, it will be a shame for the Supreme Court and the country,” Opinion, Sept. 24)

Here is the relevant portion of that article: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

In writing about Barrett, who is seen as President Trump’s top pick for the Supreme Court, columnist Harry Litman needs to be open to the fact that this nation is composed of citizens with many opinions and points of view, not those exclusively of the Democratic Party’s left wing.

Elizabeth Norling, Long Beach

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To the editor: I’m fascinated by the “originalist” theory of interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Does that mean we should go back to a time without electricity, cars and plumbing?

More importantly, America’s founding fathers didn’t include women. A woman such as Barrett couldn’t have become an attorney much less a federal judge. What exception to an originalist reading entitles Barrett’s career to exist?

Make no mistake about it: Women’s access to a full range of family planning choices is one reason that we’re no longer enslaved by our reproductive systems. Once-impossible paths are now open to us. We women didn’t even get the right to vote until a little over a century ago.

Under an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, how many precious rights would be now have to surrender?

I’ll never get to argue a case before the Supreme Court. However, I’m rooting for all those nimble-minded attorneys who will turn the originalist theory into the double-edged sword that it is. I hope to live long enough to see that day.

Betty Rome, Culver City