Unsurprisingly, the cult kicked into action in response to President Obama's choice of Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gingrich and others seized on part of a speech given at The Niversity of California at Berkeley in 2001, in which Judge Sotomayor stated:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

Gingrich immediately twisted the context of Judge Sotomayor's words, declaring, "Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman' new racism is no better than old racism."

An objective reading of Judge Sotomayer's statement within in its proper context demonstrates that she in no way was preaching any sort of Latina nationalism. My take was that we all have unique personal experiences that give each of us an ability to see things that others who do not share those experiences cannot see.

For example, I as an Italian-American male can see the legal prejudices visited upon Sacco and Vanzetti that adversely affected the outcome of their murder trials (run by the blatantly anti-Italian Yankee Brahmin Webster Thayer; Sacco and Vanzetti were subsequently executed) whereas as a White Protestant Male living in 1927 Dedham, Massachusetts might only see come-uppance being given to two radicals. As an attorney myself, ethnic identity insight used as a point of departure has its advantages in achieving justice.

But let's take Newt's proposition one step further, this time substituting religious identity for ethnic identity.  Add to that the question of abortion, specifically if the question of overturning Roe v. Wade comes before U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor. Must she now substitute her identity as a Catholic - and follow Church dogma - and on that basis alone, overturn a Roe?

Has Newt said as much? No. But prior to Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame, he told Fox News: "To the degree that Notre Dame still thinks of itself as a Catholic institution, it raises real questions."

Does Catholicism's newest high profile convert believe that Sotomayor should substitute conservative religious orthodoxy for her legal judgment on Roe or any other matter?   It seems time for us to turn the tables on Gingrich.