Maybe Sonia Sotomayor Will Be Our Fierce Advocate...

by Michael Jones · 2009-06-10 14:40:00 UTC
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Sonia Sotomayor

Barack Obama pledged on the campaign trail that he would be a "fierce advocate" for LGBT Americans.  Time is ticking on that clock, but a news item from 1976 might indicate that Obama's nomination to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Sonia Sotomayor, may just be a fierce advocate.

We'll be the first to admit that this isn't bombshell news, but it is pretty cool to see that Sonia Sotomayor was standing up for basic human dignity and equality more than thirty years ago.  As Julie Bolcer from the Advocate notes, Sotomayor was one of 39 individuals at Princeton University who signed a letter to the campus newspaper in 1976 condemning an attack against a gay student group.

Condemning anti-LGBT violence?  I wonder what offensive thing Newt Gingrich would have to say about that!

The letter was written after eight students broke into and vandalized a dorm room of two students involved in Princeton's Gay Alliance.  Here's the juice on the letter:

No matter how much one may disagree with the Gay Alliance or the policies they are advocating, no matter how repugnant one may find homosexuality, the manner of expressing this opposition should be intellectual.  At this university we are dedicated to persuasion by reason, not by brute force.

Gosh, here's hoping the U.S. Senate is persuaded by reason, and not the brute force of the conservative right-wing in this country who mind-numbingly call people "latina racists" at the drop of a hat.

Sure, Sotomayor's public denouncement of anti-LGBT violence doesn't make her a fierce advocate.  But it is telling that in 1976, when LGBT people could be arrested throughout the majority of the country just for living their lives in the comfort of their own bedrooms, Sotomayor was willing to lend a voice of reason and acceptance.  That can only bode well for her tenure on the nation's highest court.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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