You know, technically, there wasn’t anything wrong with what she said — at least not in the sound byte part.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
I too would hope that a wise Latina woman would do better than a doofus white guy. Ya know? And I would be willing to think, and perhaps even to say, that a wise white male with the richness of
his experiences would make better decisions than a ding dong Hispanic who doesn’t know nothing. But comparisons of the best from one class to the worst of another is the kind of thinking that has no place in a hall of justice, still less on the High Court.
We are in this muddle because we don’t know what justice is, and words like empathy are stretchy enough to cover a multitude of fallacies. Our iconic statue of justice wearing a blindfold while holding the scales is a beautiful statement of the biblical approach to justice, and so the time is coming when all such statues will be taken down, and local municipalities can raise much needed funds by hawking them on eBay.
When it comes to public justice, meditate on how beautiful this is.
“Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment: Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him. Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause” (Ex. 23:1-6).
Justice doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, black or white, tall or short. Justice
does care if you are right or wrong, and if your wrongness is inconvenient to others of your skin color, then they all should take
you aside and have a few words with you about it. They should not take Lady Justice aside to put a few bricks on her scale, and threaten her if she dares remove them.
How would it go if some president nominated her to the court? What would those hearings be like? How long would it take before Schumer or somebody pointed out that she was Caucasian, bronze tint notwithstanding?
And why are we here? Because the Church in America doesn’t know what justice is any more than anybody else does. Our theologians were twisting the Scriptures long before our justices were twisting the Constitution. Our courts were railroading people (e.g. Machen) long before their courts were. Things haven’t gotten any better in recent years. So before we complain to Heaven too loudly, let us always remember that judgment begins with the household of God.
