When Will There be a Supreme Court Justice Who Looks and Thinks Like Me?

The Black Justice. The First Female. The Wise Latina. The Rumored Lesbian. The Catholic. The Other Catholic.

Liberals have had a tendency to label possible Supreme Court picks based upon their identities, not their brains.

Thurgood Marshall was the first African American on the bench, and it was understood that he’d have to be replaced with another Justice of Color. He was, but unfortunately, Clarence Thomas wasn’t exactly what Marshall fans had hoped for.

Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman on the court, but her conservative credentials annoyed the type of women who didn’t think she was feminist enough.Ultimately, they warmed up to her when she protected abortion rights against attacks from her male colleagues.

Sonia Sotomayor made that famous statement about how a “wise Latina” might be able to bring something to deliberations that her Caucasian male brethren could not, riding the identity wave straight to the bench.

Elena Kagan was rumored to be gay in some sort of wishful thinking campaign from the LGBT community and as a subversive sort of criticism from homophobic opponents, but ultimately her sexual orientation became irrelevant.

I’ve often criticized using identity politics to make legal decisions, but now that President Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the bench, I’ve changed my tune. I’m not afraid to call myself out for hypocrisy and inconsistency.

I want a conservative woman on the Supreme Court.

After years of hearing minority groups demand representation and push the idea that they need to see their faces and voices reflected in our political institutions, and then watching those institutions yield to the idea that color, gender and sexual orientation actually matter, I realize that they might be right about one thing: whining loudly enough gets results.

So if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Here is my whine, for the next time that Trump gets to appoint a justice (though it won’t be to replace the Notorious RBG because she’s attached to that seat with Gorilla Glue.)

The next person on that court should look like me, sound like me, think like me, act like me and do it fearlessly.

The president should’ve chosen a conservative woman.

I’m not talking about some safe Republican from the purplish suburbs who won’t rock the boat and will hang with the feminists at lunchtime, eating granola and drinking oat milk lattes.

We need a real conservative woman, someone who believes that justices do not legislate from the bench and create rights based on her own desires, untethered to any constitutional basis.

Yes, I’m talking about abortion.

I want a conservative woman justice who won’t adjudicate cases by consulting her reproductive organs for their opinions.She’ll look at the law and try to determine if there is anything in the Constitution that justifies legalizing the termination of pregnancies.She won’t listen to the ridiculous, overheated rhetoric about coat hangers.

I want a conservative woman justice who won’t impose her conception of “privacy,” and “equal protection,” “religious freedom” and “speech” on the rest of us.She won’t allow others to tell her that opposition to same-sex marriage is religious bigotry, if she believes that there is nothing in the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment that requires carving out a special privilege for Adam and Steve, while denying that same privilege to Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice.

I want a conservative woman justice who won’t allow people to question her ability to be fair because she worships at a certain altar.

I want a conservative woman justice who will teach all of us that women think with their brains, and not their vaginas, and that they do not mistake loyalty to the sisterhood for loyalty to the law.

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Copyright 2018 Christine Flowers. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, and can be reached at [email protected].