As you may have heard, President Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court.

As the news reports keep telling me, she’d be the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court as well as the third woman.

Less well publicized has been the fact that she’d be the 6th Catholic.

As in the 6th Catholic on the 9-member Court now.

Souter is an Episcopalian. If Sotomayor is confirmed as his replacement, John Paul Stevens would end up as the only Protestant on the Court. (The two other non-Catholics – Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg – are Jewish.)

Should we care?

I think so. Unless you believe a person’s religion is some sort of mental jewelry that doesn’t shape their values, their ideals, the way they see the world, and much else besides, how can you disagree?

And if a person’s religious beliefs are as important as I think they are, what sense does it make for a society that’s less than 25% Catholic to have two-thirds of the members of its Supreme Court representing the Catholic point of view?

Consider: Justice Scalia is perhaps the Court’s most famous Catholic. As pointed out in point 6 of the entry I posted back on March 2, 2006, he seems to base his view of government and the governed more on his personal theism and theology than on objective jurisprudence.

As I summarized his views in that entry on the basis of his own words (quoted there at length): “[W]hat Scalia is saying here is that government gets its power from gOd – not from the consent of the governed; that democracy obscures this and thus weakens government’s ability to do gOd’s will on earth (i.e., punish sinners at home and launch crusades against infidels abroad); that people ought to basically shut-up and accept this divinely-arranged state of affairs (much as popes have been insisting they do for centuries); and that to help them better realize this, the government needs to associate itself with gOd and symbols of gOd every chance it gets. Oh, and death is no big deal – so put away your silly scruples to the contrary and kill away whenever gOd-ordained government officials tell you to!”

To what extent might Sotomayor share his views?

What senator will be courageous enough to ask her that question? What senator will dare to seek evidence of her religious impartiality while mindful of the various cases involving the Catholic Church and the Vatican making their way up towards the Supreme Court? What senator will have the gumption to try to determine the exact nature of her relationship to a Christian denomination that the recently released Ryan Report condemns for abusing thousands of kids for decades in Ireland?

You can learn more about the unprecedented nature of Obama’s nominee from a story headlined Sotomayor Would Be Part Of Court’s Catholic Shift that was posted today at CNN.

You can learn more about some of my own fears in an essay entitled Will A Supreme Court With Six (6!) Roman Catholics Even Be Able To See Pedophile Priest RICO Charges, Let Alone A Lawsuit Against The Vatican? that was posted yesterday by Kay Ebeling at her City of Angels website.

If you happen to be a Christian, be honest: Would YOU be happy if Obama had just nominated the 6th atheist to the Court? Or the 6th Muslim?

Why should atheists be happy about being completely ignored yet again?

When do non-superstitious rationalists finally get to have a clear and unapologetic voice on the Court?

If a “liberal” Democrat like Obama isn’t going to nominate an obviously non-religious secularist, who is?

And if the rational atheist point of view isn’t going to be represented on the Court during our lifetimes, why should rational atheists respect any of its decisions?

“No taxation without representation!” was a rallying cry of the American revolutionaries who were fed up with the haughty and distant king of England.

Why shouldn’t “No respect for the US Supreme Court without representation on it!” become the rallying cry of atheists fed up with its steady drift towards becoming a Catholic monopoly?