The Chicago Sun-Times reports –

If forbidding Jewish families to post “mezuzahs” on their condominium doors is not discrimination, then what if a seller told a Jewish family, “I’m happy to sell to Jews, but the association does require that Jews wear a yellow star?” Judge Richard Posner asked a lawyer for Shoreline Condominium Wednesday.

“That’s something completely different,” attorney David C. Hartwell said.

Judging by their questions, Posner and Judge Diane Wood did not seem so sure it was different.

Wood — who rises to the top of many pundits’ short lists to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court — did most of the talking at Wednesday’s hearing and illustrated once again her backers’ boasts that she is unafraid to take on conservative colleagues such as Posner and Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook on the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. She did just as much self-confident interrupting as Posner and Easterbrook.

Though there were eight judges on Wednesday’s panels, 90 percent of the questioning came from Wood, pinch-hitting for the Jewish Bloch family, which brought the lawsuit; and from Posner and Easterbrook, whose questions seemed to bolster the condominium’s side of the argument — until the very end when Posner asked a few questions friendly to the Bloch’s side — such as the yellow star question — and he and Wood looked at each other and smiled and laughed.

Ironically, some conservative groups have denounced Wood as “hostile to religious litigants.

To read this article in its entirety, please click here.

—