A Supreme Madness: How Amy Coney Barrett's People of Praise Group Inspired 'The Handmaid's Tale'

Mod: Yesterday Donny Orange Bananas announced his pick for a new Supreme Court Justice. The choice, which was Ms. Barrett as many expected, is as strange as Mr. Trump himself.

How Amy Coney Barrett's People of Praise Group Inspired 'The Handmaid's Tale'(MSN/Newsweek link): Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite to be President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is affiliated with a Christian religious group that served as inspiration for Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale.

Barrett, a devout Catholic, and her husband both belong to the People of Praise group, current and former members have said, according to The New York Times. Their fathers have served as leaders in the group.

The group, which was founded in South Bend, Indiana in 1971, teaches that men have authority over their wives. Members swear a lifelong oath of loyalty to one another and are expected to donate at least 5 per cent of their earnings to the group.

How People of Praise inspired 'The Handmaid's Tale'

Members of People of Praise are assigned to personal advisers of the same sex—called a "head" for men and "handmaid" for women, until the rise in popularity of Atwood's novel and the television series based on it forced a change in the latter.

Atwood herself has indicated that the group's existence motivated her to write The Handmaid's Tale, set in the fictional Gilead, where women's bodies are governed and treated as the property of the state under a theocratic regime.

"I delayed writing it for about three years after I got the idea because I felt it was too crazy,"Atwood told The New York Times Book Review in 1986.

'Then two things happened. I started noticing that a lot of the things I thought I was more or less making up were now happening, and indeed more of them have happened since the publication of the book."

She added: "There is a sect now, a Catholic charismatic spinoff sect, which calls the women handmaids. They don't go in for polygamy of this kind but they do threaten the handmaids according to the biblical verse I use in the book—sit down and shut up."

Moderator: Much more at the link. Below is an article that also came out before yesterday's big announcement. But there is news.

Supreme Court frontrunner Amy Coney Barrett hid her membership in the religious group that inspired hit TV show The Handmaid's Tale (Daily Maillink): Amy Coney Barrett and her husband Jesse are members of People of Praise, a small group that teaches that wives have to obey their husbands in everything.

Barrett, 48, concealed her membership from what has been described as a 'Big Brother' religious group from senators when she was before the Justice Committee in 2017. 

Barrett is Donald Trump's favorite to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trump previously nominated her to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The People of Praise religious group inspired the hit TV show The Handmaid's Tale, which depicts a dystopian world where women are oppressed.

All male and single female member of People of Praise are assigned a personal advisor of their own sex, originally called 'heads' for men and 'handmaids'for women. The 'handmaid' title was dropped after the runaway success of the Hulu series and replaced with 'woman leader.'

Democratic senators are almost certain to bring up her affiliation if she is to be nominated and goes before the Justice Committee later this year.

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