A growing number of prominent religious conservatives are mounting an effort to portray Sonia Sotomayor as a racist or "reverse racist" by taking out of context a quote from a lecture -- titled "A Latina Judge's Voice" -- she gave in 2002 at a conference at the University of California School of Law. Speaking about the ways in which life experience, gender and ethnicity affect judicial reasoning, particularly regarding areas of the law pertaining to discrimination, Sotomayor said

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.

Some responses from the Right...

Concerned Women for America's Wendy Wright: "Revealing her immodest bias, she stated that a 'Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.'"

Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land: "We are going to make our constituency aware of her record," he said, "and certainly her statement that someone from her background can render a better opinion than a white male."

Family Research Council's Tony Perkins: "Needless to say, that statement is troubling - if not offensive - on many levels."

Newt Gingrich (on Twitter, via TPM): "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"

Rod Dreher: "I want someone to explain to me how Sotomayor's statement does not mean that white males, by the facts of their gender and ethnicity, make inferior judges. It seems pretty obvious to me that she believes that."

Rod, however, later read the full speech and followed up with a post titled "I was wrong about Sotomayor speech," in which he says

"Taken in context, the speech was about how the context in which we were raised affects how judges see the world, and that it's unrealistic to pretend otherwise. Yet -- and this is a key point -- she admits that as a jurist, one is obligated to strive for neutrality. It seems to me that Judge Sotomayor in this speech dwelled on the inescapability of social context in shaping the character of a jurist. That doesn't seem to me to be a controversial point..."

Given the contrast between the controversial, out-of-context soundbyte and thoughtful nuance of the speech itself, the trumped-up racism charge will surely remain a salient attack despite the fact that it's nothing more than opportunistic hype. Greg Sargent and Steven Benen have more.