Some unnamed Republican politicians are lambasting President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in the media for her belonging to an all-female social organization called the Belizean Grove. Undoubtedly, some of these same Republicans defended past Republican nominees for belonging to all-male social organizations such as the Bohemian Club, whose membership is made up of male movers and shakers in America.
As "The Washington Times" reported yesterday, the New York-based Belizean Grove club "finds itself caught up in Supreme Court confirmation politics, with Republican lawmakers raising questions about the group's most famous member. Federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor joined the group a year ago and went on her first trip last year to Peru. Her membership went largely unnoticed until she listed it on a Senate questionnaire in preparation for her July 13 confirmation hearings."
Some hypocritical Republican members of the United States Congress, many, anonymously of course, are complaining that Ms. Sotomayor's membership in the Belizean Grove club is "discriminatory" because it is a group of mostly powerful women. The founder of the club, according to "The Washington Times," Susan Schiffer Stautberg, who founded the private women's club nine years ago said: "the group is a response to the all-male clubs that have long fostered business connections and policy links for powerful men."
A number of male nominees or Supreme Court justices to the United States Supreme Court resigned their all-male clubs including Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Harry Blackmum. Male defenders of these Supreme Court justices were right - even though some feminist groups strenuously disagree -- in saying there is no constitutional problem or any problem whatsoever with men joining all-male clubs.
Likewise, there is no problem, with women such as Judge Sotomayor, joining all female clubs such as the Belizean Grove. It is time for the Republican legislators, and feminist groups, to lay off their harsh (and sometimes hypocritical) criticism of Judge Sotomayor. There are plenty of other reasons for Republicans to question whether or not she should be elevated to the United States Supreme Court.