A “religious organization” sought to remove all mentions and photos of prospective Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett from its website.
Barrett has declined to discuss her apparent decades-long affiliation with People of Praise, a Christian group that opposes abortion and ordains men as the “head” of the family. Former members have maintained that wives must “submit” to the will of their husbands.
While the organization has declined to say whether Barrett is a member of the group, Sean Connolly, People of Praise’s spokesman, confirmed in an email that information was being wiped from the group’s website.
“Recent changes to our website were made in consultation with members and nonmembers from around the country who raised concerns about their and their families’ privacy due to heightened media attention,” Connolly said.
When Barrett was vetted in 2017 for the Supreme Court position, there was no mention of the religious group.
The AP was able to access the missing information through the Internet Archive, a non-profit group that has saved digital versions of more than 330 billion web pages.
Web pages and articles that mentioned Amy Barrett’s father, Michael Coney Sr., who has served as the principal leader of People of Praise’s New Orleans branch and was on the group’s national board as recently as 2017, also disappeared. And a 2006 magazine story about Barrett’s parents that referred to Linda Coney as a “handmaid,” a female leader assigned to help guide other women, was also deleted. The article noted that five of the Coney’s seven children were People of Praise members, though it did not say which ones.
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A previous AP report said that People of Praise, founded in 1971, include people from several Christian denominations, though the majority of its roughly 1,800 adult members remain Catholic. The group’s 22 branches organize and meet outside the influence of the Roman Catholic church.
Former members have talked about their beliefs.
- Wives obey their husband’s every command, including sex on demand
- Women are forbidden to obtain birth control, as their function was to have as many children as God was willing
- The movement emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus, and can include baptism and “speaking in tongues”
Barrett’s father is a current member of the group, and told the AP that male members dominating their wives is a “misunderstanding” of the group’s teachings and that women are free to make their own decisions.
From The Guardian