Justice Amy Coney Barrett Defends Supreme Court’s Role Ahead of New Book Release, Addresses Same-Sex Marriage Debate
Justice Amy Coney Barrett Defends Supreme Court’s Role Ahead of New Book Release, Addresses Same-Sex Marriage Debate
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett asserts that the court’s rulings are “not just an opinion poll” of its nine judges’ beliefs, emphasizing that the institution should not impose its own values on the American people. Her comments come as the court faces a request to overturn the legalization of same-sex marriage and ahead of the September 9 publication of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.
In a preview of her first television interview since joining the Supreme Court in 2020, airing on CBS News Sunday Morning, Barrett remarked, “The court should not be imposing its own values on the American people. That’s for the democratic process.” The interview serves to promote her forthcoming book, where she also defends the June 2022 decision that overturned national abortion rights, stating it “respected the choice” of Americans by returning the issue to states.
Barrett’s statements are particularly salient given a May 2025 Gallup poll indicating 68% support for legal same-sex marriage, even as the court considers a request to reverse the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. Responding to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s prediction that the Supreme Court “will do to gay marriage what they did to abortion,” Barrett maintained that the court must “tune those things out.”
The Justice concludes in her book that fundamental rights include marriage, sexual intimacy, and raising children, but not the right to obtain an abortion. She aims for Americans to understand the law “and that it’s not just an opinion poll about whether the supreme court thinks something is good or … bad. What the court is trying to do is see what the American people have decided.”
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