Yesterday Judge Sotomayor was questioned about her Free Exercise jurisprudence by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD). Here’s a snipped version of the exchange:

CARDIN: Well, let me conclude on one other case that you ruled on, where I also agree with your decision. That’s the Ford v. McGinnis, where you wrote a unanimous panel opinion overturning a district court summary judgment finding in favor of the Muslim inmate who was denied by prison officials’ access to his religious meals marking the end of Ramadan.

You held that the inmate’s fundamental rights were violated and that the opinions of the department of correction and religious authorities cannot trump the plaintiff’s sincere and religious beliefs…

[snip]

SOTOMAYOR: In the Ford case that you just mentioned, the question there before the court was, did the district court err in considering whether or not the religious belief that this prisoner had was consistent with the established traditional interpretation of a meal at issue, OK?

And what I was doing was applying very important Supreme Court precedent that said, it’s the subjective belief of the individual. Is it really motivated by a religious belief?

It’s one of the reasons we recognize conscientious objectors, because we’re asking a court not to look at whether this is orthodox or not, but to look at the sincerity of the individual’s religious belief and then look at what the state is doing in light of that. So that was what the issue was in Ford.

It’s reassuring to see Sotomayor recognizes that what is important in deciding a person’s right to free exercise of religion is not whether an establishment thinks a particular tradition is necessary or unnecessary to the practice of an individual’s religion, but whether that individual perceives it to be. Sotomayor has a good record of upholding that standard, and her rulings have maintained government neutrality between all faiths—whether mainstream or nontraditional.

However, I would like to see a member of the Judicial Committee ask Sotomayor her opinion on government neutrality between faith and non-faith. Is my right to any aspect of my humanist philosophy the same as any Christian’s right to any aspect of their faith? Or, to use an example cited by Sotomayor, would she recognize an atheist as a conscientious objector?