Limbaugh: I Could Support Sotomayor If I Became Convinced That She’s Anti-Choice

Just hours after President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh accused her of being a racist and demanded that conservatives oppose her nomination. But in a little noticed portion of his radio show yesterday, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh highlighted the fact that Sotomayor is a Catholic whose views on abortion are not well-known. Limbaugh suggested that, if he becomes convinced that she is anti-choice, he would consider supporting her nomination. Sotomayor “might be the biggest hope for overturning Roe v. Wade down the line,” he said:

We know she’s Catholic. We also know she has no record on abortion. Sonia Sotomayor being Catholic and having not said a word about abortion, I find that interesting. All libs who want to go anywhere in liberalism are pro-choice and they make no bones about it, she hasn’t said a word about it, which could mean that her private feelings are she’s pro-life.

If I could be convinced that Sonia Sotomayor might be the biggest hope for overturning Roe v. Wade down the line, then I might be persuaded to look at her nomination in a different light. I’m serious. I’m dead serious. I’m dead serious. Life, preserving life, to me, is a far more important issue — we can deal with the racism and the bigotry, that can be canceled out by other justices and so forth.

Limbaugh reiterated this argument again today on his radio show, saying, “She would be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court. … She’s a Catholic, a devout Catholic, she hasn’t got a record on [abortion] … I can see a possibility of supporting this nomination if I can be convinced that she does have a sensibility towards life.” According to Limbaugh, the fact that she is Puerto Rican, makes it even more likely that she is “devout.” Watch it:

Limbaugh’s hope that Sotomayor will allow the anti-choice stance of the Catholic church to influence her rulings in the court room is a direct contradiction of his insistence last week that Sotomayor’s nomination must be stopped by conservatives because, as he argued, she would allow her personal experiences to influence her rulings from the bench:

RUSH: Have you seen, and do you remember if you have seen it a picture of the lady holding the scales of justice? Do you know what’s remarkable about the lady in that rendering? She’s blindfolded. She doesn’t know whether the people before her… Justice does not know whether the people before it are black, white, Hispanic, male, female, rich, poor, Martian, or whatever. There is nothing about Sonia Sotomayor that is blindfolded where justice is concerned.

Apparently in Limbaugh’s view, when judges allow their religious backgrounds to directly influence their rulings in ways conservatives view favorably, it’s blind justice. When judges remark that being a minority can give individuals perspective on the impact of their rulings, it’s racism.