A child of New York's public housing projects, raised — as was the president — by a single mother, Sotomayor excelled at Princeton and Yale Law School, and worked as a prosecutor and a corporate lawyer before ascending to the bench. Her life story is admirable, her credentials impeccable. Her ethnicity and gender only enhance her undeniable competency. In Sotomayor, a still-new president appears to have made a laudable choice for a still-new century.
Meanwhile in California
If anyone wants to turn back the clock and deny women the right to vote, or to reinstate slavery, he or she should hightail it to California. There, the state's Supreme Court effectively reversed itself by upholding a referendum that negated the court's earlier ruling granting same-sex couples the right to marry. In all, it was a shameful performance. It indeed would have taken courage for the California court to defy popular opinion. But even in a democracy — especially in a democracy — what should be a basic human right should not be denied to a minority of citizens by the intolerance of the majority.
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