May 29, 2009  |  By: Lou Chibbaro Jr.  | COMMENTS     

Gay rights groups were optimistic at President Obama’s decision to nominate Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge, for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The president announced his decision to name Sotomayor as the replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter on Tuesday at the White House.

Sotomayor, a native of New York’s South Bronx whose parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico, would become the nation’s first Hispanic justice on the high court, provided the U.S. Senate votes to confirm her.

“We are pleased and encouraged by this excellent choice,” said D’Arcy Kemnitz, executive director of the National LGBT Bar Association. “As LGBT Americans, we are excited to have more diversity on the bench, and as attorneys we are gratified to have one of the brightest legal minds of our time on the court.”

Kemnitz and officials with other gay groups, including the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund in New York, said one of their key criteria for evaluating nominees for judicial appointments, especially a Supreme Court appointment, is the nominee’s respect for the constitutional right to privacy.

The high court’s landmark 2003 decision of Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned state sodomy laws, was based largely on the justices’ interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s implied privacy rights.

LGBT legal experts have said a judicial nominee’s record of support for the right of Congress to promote civil rights through legislation also is a key factor in their assessment of such a nominee.

“Sonya Sotomayor, who has shown empathy and fearlessness on the U.S. Court of Appeals, not only meets, but exceeds these criteria,” Kemnitz said.

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said the group is “encouraged by Judge Sotomayor’s record of fair-minded decisions,” saying she has “consistently recognized” the constitutional right to privacy.

“We applaud President Obama for choosing Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the nation’s next U.S. Supreme Court Justice,” Solmonese said. “We are confident that Judge Sotomayor has a demonstrated understanding and commitment to protecting the liberty and equality of all Americans.”

Officials with LGBT organizations that monitor legal issues said they were not aware of any decisions Sotomayor wrote or signed onto that specifically pertained to LGBT- or AIDS-related issues during her 11 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That district has jurisdiction over New York, Connecticut and Vermont.

Prior to serving on the federal appeals court, Sotomayor served from 1992 to 1998 as a U.S. District Court judge in New York. Gay legal activists said they also were not aware of any LGBT-related decisions she handed down while serving on the district court.

Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, which includes an LGBT rights project, were each planning to review Sotomayor’s record over the next few weeks and publicize their findings, officials with the two groups said.

Lambda Legal noted on its web site that one of its staff attorneys, Michael Kavey, was a law clerk for Sotomayor during her tenure as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Lambda spokesperson Erin Baer said Kavey was not immediately available for comment on his experience in working for Sotomayor.

Gay rights attorney Matt Coles, who heads the ACLU’s LGBT rights project, said rulings on discrimination cases in general and on the constitutional issue of equality under the law are among the issues his organization would look for in its review of Sotomayor’s record.

“One question that comes up in gay rights cases all the time, including equality-related cases, is how does the judge think about whether the court should just accept the government’s rationale for discrimination or to what extent should they be skeptical about that,” Coles said.

“You can look at all sorts of equal protection questions to see how she analyzes it,” he said. “So that’s what one would ordinarily do” to get an idea of how Sotomayor would decide LGBT-related cases.

During the White House announcement Tuesday, Obama praised Sotomayor for having a wide array of experience as a judge, prosecutor and an attorney in private practice.

“Over a distinguished career that spans three decades, Judge Sotomayor has worked at almost every level of our judicial system, providing her with a depth of experience and a breadth of perspective that will be invaluable as a Supreme Court justice,” the president said.

Sotomayor, who is divorced, is single and has no children. Her mother, brother, and numerous relatives and friends accompanied her to the White House ceremony.