Sotomayor the opening step in a Latina Woman majority

The right wing press seems to be in a great huff over Sotomayor's comments about the positive impact of a wise Latina woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. Let me make her defense for her, although she'll probably work this out in time for her testimony before the Senate. She was noting that one wise Latina woman on a bench with a bunch of old white guys might bring a perspective not otherwise available.

If there were already eight such and she was saying that only another wise Latina woman would work, I think we would have reason to criticize her. But that is not the case now and the likelihood that it will ever be a concern is minimal.

What we should be concerned about is that this will make six Catholics out of nine. Salon seems quite complacent, noting that we have had a majority of white Protestant men almost all the time since the founding of the Republic. Perfectly OK, except that I might note that until recently law schools graduated virtually no women so it would have been remarkable to have seen any on the Supreme Court, and that the country has always had a Protestant majority. Hardly surprising that this group formed a constant majority.

Frankly, I think the group most unrepresented is the unchurched. There are nine justices and, going by strict proportionality, you'd expect one of the justices to coincide with the number who publicly deny any religious affiliation. If you went further and accounted for the number who in practice have none, you'd expect a far larger number.

But it's impossible to get to the top of the judiciary, any more than to get elected to high office in this country, unless you publicly profess your faith. Any faith, it seems, is better than none, even though this is logically contradictory for those who seriously believe in the infallibility of their own inspiration.

Someday, a candidate for something important will state, when queried about his faith, "None. It's all rot and poppycock." But I'm not holding my breath.

One final point. English has no inflections for gender. If we're going to go beyond English, should we be saying "Latinas women?" Do we say "francaises women?" What do we do with languages we can't transcribe?

I don't mind importing words, but when they come ashore they should follow the rules. Latino is an English noun/adjective for people, primarily from this hemisphere, who speak or whose ancestors spoke, Spanish. It's the only word we need.