(UNDATED) Let’s hope the Senate approves Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination and gives us our first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

It’s not so much about her being Puerto Rican or Catholic that has her detractors in an uproar. It’s the fact that she’s a woman.

But, then again, that combination is pretty upsetting to the gray-haired, gray-suited crowd, especially the males. I know. I’ve been there.

Several years ago, I was the speaker at a private dinner in Washington for about 25 men of the conservative power crowd. My topic was Catholic Just War theory. When I arrived, I soon realized no one in attendance knew “Dr. Zagano” was a woman. I approached a retired Navy Admiral and tried to introduce myself. He froze and stared at me with a look reserved for hookers and impertinent secretaries.

I stared back when I got up to speak.

These men and their descendents are still around. It’s not surprising some are upset at Sotomayor’s nomination. But how much of their opposition is based on her legal opinions? I think they just can’t stand the thought of a Puerto Rican woman on the court.

Like it or not, the high court decides policy. Some cases on the docket touch hot-button topics, like immigration and free speech. Many have to do with the rights of the accused. A few are mildly amusing, like the fight between North Carolina and South Carolina over river rights.

And Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, may hear these cases.

Once nominated, it seems her every written word was marched under the microscope of public opinion. We heard about her ethnic roots. We heard about Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. We heard about Princeton University and Yale Law School. But, most of all, we heard about “empathy” as a negative quality for a judge. We even heard her called a racist.

All this, apparently, because she gave a lecture entitled “A Latina Judge’s Voice.”

At a conference in California several years ago, she said Latino and Latina judges are both necessary and good — for the country and for the Constitution. Sotomayor said her Puerto Rican roots and her experiences growing up as a “Newyorkrican” would influence her perspective.

How could they not?

The naysayers wrenched one sentence from her thoughtful comments: “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.” She also agreed with another judge, who wrote there is no such thing as total “neutrality”.

Therein lies the rub. To argue on behalf of a type of “neutrality” that eliminates background or gender demands everything be black or white. But that removes real judging — distinguishing among the grays — from our complicated legal system.

The problem is what existential philosophers call “facticity.” You are who you are, a product of your environment and experiences. Deny your history and you deny yourself.

That, of course, is impossible. If Sotomayor must deny her history, then so must every other judge on the bench. So, too, must every gray-suited senator who votes on her nomination.

Sotomayor’s detractors worry that someone with a different life experience will be on the court. The problem is not the possibilities of her perspectives. The problem is that it’s her perspective, not theirs.

Sonia Sotomayor is Puerto Rican by birth, Catholic by faith, and female by chance. She has been a federal judge since 1992. She appears to be what conservatives like to call a liberal.

More important than all of that, however, is that she seems qualified to decide, along with eight other Supreme Court justices, a number of important issues. She will be one of nine on that high bench. If she adds a Latina judge’s voice, I’m all for it.

(Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies.)