Sotomayor

The buzz around Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s recent nomination, as well as the ongoing hearings, has brought to the forefront the issue of gender and race in the currently U.S. Supreme Court, which does not appear terribly representative of the country it deigns to serve.  But critics and journalists are missing the boat with respect to a determinant factor of identity, going beyond race and gender.  There’s a glaring omission from this debate.

While the racial milestone that will be made with her appointment to the court will certainly be significant, an important trend (perhaps the most important trend) in the court itself will be broken by her ascendancy. That is, she will be the first Catholic on the Court who is not a conservative.

(from: Southern Appeal)

While every is scrutinizing the race, gender, and whiteness of the Court, and how it affects the decisions that it makes, the religious denominational breakdown of the Court has been the leading (and perhaps sole) indicator based on identity as to how the Court has voted.  That is to say: All the Roman Catholic Justices are conservative (from moderately-tempered Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, to the barking mad Scalia), whereas all the other non-Catholic Justices (Ginsburg, Stephens, Breyer, and the now-departed Souter) are more liberal in their decisions.

Since the end of the Rehnquist Court in 2005, the the sides in decisions of the Court could be nearly always determined by Catholic affiliation (or non-affiliation).  For instance, Justice Kennedy is occasionally a “swing vote” between the liberal and conservatives of the court, but almost always sides with his Catholic buddies.  A few exceptions have occurred, such as Kelo v. City of New London, but such exceptions largely prove the rule.

With Sotomayor on the Court, all that will change!  LIberal Catholics around the country can rejoice that finally a non-conservative Catholic will represent and advocate their ideological perspective in the future.  A wall will be broken, a stereotyping of Catholics as socially backwards, intolerant curmudgeons will end, and “progress” will be upon the U.S. Supreme Court.

Question: Should liberals now fear that Sotomayor will abandon her hitherto liberal instincts, and start taking orders from the Vatican? (See B.E. Howard’s question to Kennedy)

Giving Warren even more mainstream cred is not just a cost-free nod to evangelicals. It’s a boost for someone who actively opposes Obama’s agenda and who is eager to influence secular affairs.

That mainstream cred may be cost-free to the evangelicals, but it comes at a deadly cost to the LGBT community…

(Mikko Allane, emphasis mine):

The problem, as many commentators have noted, is that we’re not disagreeing about abstract ideas — we’re disagreeing about civil and human rights.

I would argue that we’re disagreeing about most basic human right of all — the right to live a life free of violence.

Because words are where violence begins. And in America, violence against gays, lesbians, and transgendered people most often begins in hateful and intolerant words spoken in right-wing churches like Rick Warren’s Saddleback. Warren has compared gay and lesbian people to pedophiles and perpetrators of incest (you can watch the CNN video of his remarks here). His words may often be cloaked more politely, but in his intolerance, Warren is really no different than James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps, or other peddlers of anti-gay hate.

And the seeds of that hate are growing faster than ever.

This year, the FBI reported a 1% decline in hate crimes in the United States. At the same time, they revealed a 6% increase in hate crimes against gay, lesbian, and transgendered people. In the past few months alone, shocking murders have been reported across the country from Oxnard, CA to Brooklyn, NY, and most recently, San Francisco.

That’s a powerful statistic.  Hate crime on average has gone down while hate crimes against the LGBT community have gone up.  Crimes including gang rape (Vanessa, Feministing):

Last Saturday in San Francisco, a lesbian was beaten and repeatedly raped by four men, while the perpetrators “made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation.” They then left the 28-year old naked outside of an abandoned apartment building, who was helped by someone living nearby.

Its impossible to imagine Obama inviting the leader of a white supremacist group attempting to gain mainstream appeal.  I can understand what Obama is going for by inviting an evangelical to the inauguration.  The problem is that the cost outweights the benefits.  He’s helping a wolf get his sheep costume on in the hope that they can work on common problems like fighting hoof and mouth disease and too much logging in the woods.  To do this he’s ignoring the sheep who go missing.

Violence against gay/bi/trans people continues to burn and Obama is helping the man with the gasoline.