Sotomayor: Too Many Catholics, Jews, on the Supreme Court

[bhikkhu]

38. Diversity is good, but you have to look at people as individuals to see it

Bigotry can be defined as judging individuals based on their arbitrary placement within some group or other. Arbitrary meaning born into a race, a religion, a gender, a skin color, or whatever superficial characteristic. In all cases it is a matter of making a judgement about an individual using a criteria that tells you nothing about that that individual. Assuming knowledge about a person's mind based on their physical appearance or religious affiliation isn't wise.

I grew up among Catholics. Not one of them was devout in any demonstrable way. Politically they ran the spectrum, splitting fairly evenly between Reagan and Carter during that election, for instance. Most of them disagreed with the vatican on women's rights; all of them disagreed with the vatican on birth control, as far as I saw. The idea of some puppet-master determining who people are based on how they were born is wrong-headed.