Bringing the two topics of the day together, one arrives at this question: Where does Sonia Satomayor stand on questions of gay rights, which will almost certainly end up at the U.S. Supreme Court within her lifetime?

Turns out she doesn't have much of a record either way on this issue (which may be part of the reason she was picked), but the Human Rights Campaign is heartened by her support for a Constitutional right to privacy:

Judge Sotomayor has consistently recognized the constitutional right to privacy, first articulated in Griswold, that lays the foundation for fundamental rights for LGBT people.

Lambda Legal, on the other hand, sounds lukewarm, calling on the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to "carefully analyze Judge Sotomayor's record." Meanwhile, over in the Dept. of Anecdotes and Inferences and Tea-leaves, gay legal activist Paula Ettelbrick had this Sotomayor story (via HuffintonPost) to recount for a gay newspaper on the east coast:

Ettelbrick said she met Sotomayor in about 1991 when they both served on then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s advisory committee on fighting bias.

"Nobody wanted to talk to the queer person at that time," said Ettelbrick, who represented Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. "She was the only one [on the advisory committee] who made a point to come over and introduce herself. She was totally interested [in gay civil rights issues] and supportive."