Equality under the law won over judicial empathy today. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of men in New Haven Connecticut who worked hard to earn promotions according to the rules set forth by their employer and were then denied said promotions because of race. Not much of a news making story except for the fact that the men discriminated against are white. And the decision the high court overturned in their ruling was made, in part, by current Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. And the decision was based on the rule of law not President Obama's preferred criteria of empathy for the litigants.

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Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has resigned from the elite all-women's club The Belizean Grove. She said she resigned to prevent her membership in the club from distracting anyone from her qualifications and record. She also said that her membership did not violate judicial ethics. Federal judges are bound by a code that says they shouldn't join any organization that discriminates by race, sex, religion or nationality. (source) Judge Sotomayor claims that The Belizean Grove does not do that. So why resign?

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Not long ago, someone might have chuckled at the notion that states' rights advocates had won in deciding where the battles on gay marriage would take place. What appeared to be an inevitable federal issue is now where it belongs: in the hands of the states. Strike a small victory for the Constitution and let the war over "gay marriage" commence.

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With President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court we now know for sure what he meant at that press briefing at the beginning of the month. The president said "I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes."

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