The Significance of Sotomayor

There is Justice--and Then There's Sotomayor

President Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. To those not familiar with the US Constitution and system of government, the Supreme Court is one of the three pillars of government in that nation. The Supreme Court is separate from the Executive and the Congress: its member judges are appointed for life; their role is to pass judgement on laws passed by Congress and the States, rules and regulations promulgated by the Executive, and the decisions of lower courts.

In essence the Supreme Court is the final arbiter on whether laws and government actions are lawful in the sense of whether they are consistent with, or a violation of, the Constitution. It is a very important check and balance upon State and its powers. Hence the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor due to the retirement of a sitting Justice on the Court is significant because the Court is a separate but equal branch of US government, and every judge counts, with the potential to affect the nation for decades to come.

Obama has nominated a justice after his own image. It is abundantly clear that both Obama and Sotomayor reflect a view of the law and of justice that is non-Christian, and, therefore, pagan. Charles Krauthamer takes up the story:

Sonia Sotomayor has a classic American story. So does Frank Ricci.

Ricci is a New Haven firefighter stationed seven blocks from where Sotomayor went to law school (Yale). Raised in blue-collar Wallingford, Conn., Ricci struggled as a C and D student in public schools ill-prepared to address his serious learning disabilities. Nonetheless he persevered, becoming a junior firefighter and Connecticut's youngest certified EMT.

After studying fire science at a community college, he became a New Haven "truckie," the guy who puts up ladders and breaks holes in burning buildings. When his department announced exams for promotions, he spent $1,000 on books, quit his second job so he could study eight to 13 hours a day, and, because of his dyslexia, hired someone to read him the material.

He placed sixth on the lieutenant's exam, which qualified him for promotion. Except that the exams were thrown out by the city, and all promotions denied, because no blacks had scored high enough to be promoted.

Ricci (with 19 others) sued.

That's where these two American stories intersect. Sotomayor was a member of the three-member circuit court panel that upheld the dismissal of his case, thus denying Ricci his promotion.

This summary ruling deeply disturbed fellow members of Sotomayor's court, including Judge Jose Cabranes (a fellow Clinton appointee) who, writing for five others, criticized the unusual, initially unpublished, single-paragraph dismissal for ignoring the serious constitutional issues at stake.

Two things are sure to happen this summer: The Supreme Court will overturn Sotomayor's panel's ruling. And, barring some huge hidden scandal, Sotomayor will be elevated to that same Supreme Court.

The question is begged: on what "principle" could Sotomayor deny promotion to the non-black firefighters, and claim that it is legal or constitutional? The only answer possible is that Sotomayor (together with Obama) believes that the law is political tool to be used for social change. Put another way, Sotomayor reflects the view that the courts should create law, make law, asserting authority over the legislative process itself. No longer should courts define what the meaning of the law is, the role of judges in the view of both Obama and Sotomayor is to define what the law ought to be. Thus the role of the judge is to make new laws.

And what new laws should be made? Krauthamer exposes the Sotomayor (and Obama, and Democrat) idea that laws should discriminate in favour of certain groups or identities, at the expense of others. He says that she should be opposed in the Senate (which must confirm her nomination) on grounds of:

. . . . the Ricci case. And on her statements about the inherent differences between groups, and the superior wisdom she believes her Latina physiology, culture and background grant her over a white male judge. They perfectly reflect the Democrats' enthrallment with identity politics, which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.

Sotomayor shares President Obama's vision of empathy as lying at the heart of judicial decision-making -- sympathetic concern for litigants' background and current circumstances, and for how any judicial decision would affect their lives.

Obama and the Democrats and Sotomayor reflect and embrace a pagan view of law and justice. It is flat out anti-Christian. One of the core strictures and structures of Christian justice is that the courts must be blind. Neither the courts nor the judges are to have regard for the great or the small, the rich or the poor, the black or the white, the ruler or the subject. The courts are to see that justice is equal, and that all are equal before the law, and that all are under the law. This is at the heart of Christian justice--and it is foreign to all "isms" found in the City of Unbelief.

Krauthamer asserts that this intrinsic and essential principle of justice is what conservatism is all about. That may be--but it has far deeper religious roots than a political philosophy--and without its Christian foundations, blind justice will not survive.

Since the 2008 election, people have been asking what conservatism stands for. Well, if nothing else, it stands unequivocally against justice as empathy -- and unequivocally for the principle of blind justice.

Empathy is a vital virtue to be exercised in private life -- through charity, respect and lovingkindness -- and in the legislative life of a society where the consequences of any law matter greatly, which is why income taxes are progressive and safety nets built for the poor and disadvantaged.

But all that stops at the courthouse door. Figuratively and literally, justice wears a blindfold. It cannot be a respecter of persons. Everyone must stand equally before the law, black or white, rich or poor, advantaged or not.

Obama and Sotomayor draw on the "richness of her experiences" and concern for judicial results to favor one American story, one disadvantaged background, over another. The refutation lies in the very oath Sotomayor must take when she ascends to the Supreme Court: "I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich. ... So help me God."

When the hearings begin, Republicans should call Frank Ricci as their first witness. Democrats want justice rooted in empathy? Let Ricci tell his story and let the American people judge whether his promotion should have been denied because of his skin color in a procedure Sotomayor joined in calling "facially race-neutral."

The rule of law is one of the fundaments of justice--but only if justice is itself blind. The Law of God is very clear:

You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike.
Deuteronomy 1:17

For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great and mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality, nor take a bribe.
Deuteronomy 10: 17

You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbour fairly.
Leviticus 19:15

Obama and Sotomayor and the Democrats have another idea. They have prorogued the Living God from their hearts and minds and have sought to change the essential concepts of justice in a most revolutionary manner. To them, justice is only justice if it shows partiality, if it defers, if it favours one at the expense of the other. Obama and his fellow ideologues insist that justice not only have particular regard for a particular colour, race, social class, sexual practices, for particular identities, but that it is not justice unless it rules in their favour.

Obama and Sotomayor are profoundly anti-Christian and anti-God in these matters.