If one Supreme Court Justice gets her way, there will be a religious test for the next SCOTUS nominee….as well as the standard abortion litmus test!
Not happy with the proposed nominee offered by President Obama, Sonia Sotomayor offered her faith-based suggestions:
Justice Sonia Sotomayor says the Supreme Court needs more diversity, amid the politically charged debate about filling a vacancy on the high court.”I … think there is a disadvantage from having (five) Catholics, three Jews, everyone from an Ivy League school,” Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina justice, said Friday at Brooklyn Law School.However, she did not mention by name Judge Merrick Garland, a white male with a Harvard Law School degree whom President Obama recently nominated to fill the vacancy of Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative voice on the court. Scalia died unexpectedly in January.
Conservative talk show host Tammy Bruce notes the obvious hypocrisy:
It’s somewhat ironic that Ms. Sotomayor holds these concerns as she herself is a Catholic from New York who attended Yale. Her own awareness of what she thinks is an issue undermines the core of her own argument, that people like her can’t be good SCOTUS judges. On the other hand, maybe she’s confessing that she’s not? Honestly, if people like her are the problem (Catholic, Ivy league education), why did she have no problem accepting the honor for herself?If she’s serious with her passion about the problem of Catholics and Jews who go to good schools, she should have told President Obama, “No, no. Not me, I’m exactly what you don’t want. Go find the right pagan or atheist, preferably one who doesn’t have an education at all. Only they can save the court.”
As a Catholic American, I am particularly perplexed that she feels another Catholic wouldn’t be up to the task of rendering fair decisions based on the Constitution. Has she been unduly influenced by her faith?
Intriguingly, there seems to be different levels of Catholicism when it comes to SCOTUS nominees:
When John Roberts was nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, left-wingers accused President Bush of “Playing the Catholic card.” When Bush selected Samuel Alito, these same critics sounded the alarms over the prospect of a “majority” of the Supreme Court justices being Catholic. One would think that the selection of yet another Catholic to sit on the high court would drive these folks right over the edge. But for some reason, Sotomayor’s Catholic credentials didn’t seem to matter. Is that because she is viewed as reliably liberal?When Justice Roberts was nominated to be on the high court, Senator Dick Durbin told CNN that he considered it fair game to probe Roberts about his Catholicism. After Sotomayor’s selection, Durbin released a glowing statement never once mentioning her religion. When Senators Arlen Specter and Dianne Feinstein questioned Roberts, they both asked him whether he agreed with President John F. Kennedy about the separation of church and state. Neither of them mentioned Sotomayor’s religion in their respective statements on her selection.
Progressives everywhere have every reason to appreciate the Roberts appointment. Not only was his vote the one that allowed Obamacare to live, but he looks like the Wild Card vote in an upcoming decision on Obama’s use of executive orders:
Thee Supreme Court appeared split along ideological lines Monday as justices took up one of the most significant challenges yet to President Obama’s use of executive power — an election-year dispute over his bid to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and make them eligible to work in the U.S….[C]omments by Chief Justice John Roberts helped keep a final decision in doubt, as he suggested a possible quick-fix in a key part of the policy. In doing so, he gave possible hope to the White House and its allies, even if a split decision still appears the most likely outcome.
Let me suggest that if Sotomayor truly feels that opening up a seat to a non-Catholic would be a good thing for diversity, she can resign. David Souter retired in 2009, so she is under no obligation to stay until death.
However, I will credit her suggestion about the Ivy League background: It is the wisest part of the Latina’s rant.
(Featured Image via YouTube/TheAmericanView).
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