Far-left filmmaker Michael Moore mocked Chicago Judge Amy Coney Barrett for her Christian faith on the first day of Senate hearings over her nomination to the Supreme Court, comparing her Catholic beliefs to the dystopian Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
“Under his eye. Blessed be the fruit,” Moore wrote in a tweet alongside a photo juxtaposing a mask-wearing Barrett against a screen grab from the TV show in which female characters wear restrictive masks to keep them from speaking. Barrett also wore a dress he suggested mimicked the color of the Puritanical robes worn by “handmaids” on the series, based on novelist Margaret Atwood’s book “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which reimagines the U.S. under patriarchal, theocratic rule.
As radio host and author Dana Loesch noted, though, the photo of Barrett was clearly edited, because the judge’s dress was pink — not red.
And even if it were red, the ridiculous comparison would still be offensive and without merit. After all, as conservative writer Ben Shapiro pointed out:
Moore isn’t alone in his attack. MSNBC analyst Zerlina Maxwell also mocked Barrett for her faith by comparing Barrett to female characters on “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Maxwell, however, is claiming she “never” mocked Barrett’s faith because she is the daughter of two pastors. “I simply noted the visual similarity,” she said. It doesn’t appear Maxwell noted “the visual similarity” of wearing masks during a pandemic until Barrett was nominated for the Supreme Court.
Media members have been unfairly attacking Barrett’s Christian beliefs since President Donald Trump selected her to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the high court.
For example, with very little research, Reuters published a fallacious report linking Barrett’s alleged membership in the parachurch group People of Praise to Atwood’s 1985 novel. There is no reason to believe the organization, which used to refer to its married female members as “handmaidens” but has since dropped the title, inspired the novelist’s writing.
Premier Christian News reporter Will Maule reached out to the People of Praise, whose leader said the term “handmaiden” was based in Scripture.
“They’re just a group of Christians,” Maule told Faithwire Managing Editor Dan Andros. “They’re a group of charismatic Catholic Christians — they would be quite conservative. But the whole idea that they inspired ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is complete nonsense. It’s got no basis whatsoever.”
“It has absolutely no connotation with the term ‘handmaid’ as used in the novel and more lately in the TV series,” the journalist continued. “It’s actually a term of honor. It’s a term to describe women leaders — leaders in the group. And it’s also a reference to how Mary, the mother of Jesus, described herself.”
The Senate hearings taking place this week are set against the backdrop of 2017, when, during her confirmation hearings for a judgeship on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett faced faith-based attacks from Democratic lawmakers.
At the time, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called into question Barrett’s ability to be Catholic and rule objectively. She told the then-nominee, “The dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.”
Democrats have, so far, steered clear from attacking Barrett’s faith this go ’round.