Three gay-friendly legal groups have asked to be part of a federal lawsuit challenging California's same-sex marriage ban — a request that drew an icy reception from the activists behind the case.

After publicly questioning the wisdom of the suit and then submitting papers in support of it, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights said they want to represent gay community groups in the proceedings.

The three legal organizations are the same ones that have long led the effort to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Jennifer Pizer, Lambda Legal's national marriage director, said their full participation is vital now that U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker has put the Proposition 8 challenge on a fast-track to trial.

"We think it will be very helpful to Judge Walker and the ultimate resolution of the questions in the case for the litigation to have the benefit of the presence of the community in all its diversity," Pizer said.

But the newly formed political group funding the case, the American Foundation for Equal Rights, is opposing the request. The foundation scored a public relations coup when it persuaded the high-profile lawyers who squared off over the disputed 2000 presidential election to take on the lawsuit.

In a letter to the legal groups sent Wednesday, board president Chad Griffin, a Los Angeles-based political consultant, said the show of solidarity was coming too late since the same groups originally criticized a federal civil rights claim as premature.

The court said Monday it will hear arguments in the case again in a special session on Sept. 9. The justices said they want lawyers to address whether the court should overturn its earlier rulings on limiting corporate and union contributions in federal elections.

Citizens United, a conservative not-for-profit group, wanted to air ads for the movie in Democratic primary states and also make the film available to cable subscribers on demand without complying with federal campaign finance law.

But lower courts have said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.

At the time of "Hillary: The Movie," the New York senator was competing with Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. She is now secretary of state in the Obama administration.

The court's composition will be different by the time it rehears the case. Justice David Souter plans to retire this month, and Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a judge from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace him.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could give Sotomayor's critics fresh ammunition two weeks before her Senate confirmation hearing. Conservatives say it shows she is a judicial activist who lets her own feelings color her decisions. On the other hand, liberal allies say her stance in the case demonstrates her restraint and unwillingness to go beyond established precedents.

Coincidentally, the court may have given a boost to calls for quick action on her nomination.

The court said it will return Sept. 9 to hear a second round of arguments in a campaign finance case, and with Justice David Souter retiring there would be only eight justices unless Sotomayor has been confirmed by then.

In Monday's ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions." He was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The court, with only one justice in dissent, avoided the major constitutional questions raised in the case over the federal government's most powerful tool to prevent discriminatory voting changes since the mid-1960s.

The law requires all or parts of 16 states, mainly in the South, with a history of discrimination in voting to get approval in advance of making changes in the way elections are conducted.

The court said that the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 in Austin, Texas, can opt out of the advance approval requirement, reversing a lower federal court that found it could not.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the larger issue of whether dramatic civil rights gains means the advance approval requirement is no longer necessary "is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today."

The court's avoidance of the larger issue explains the consensus among justices in the case rendered Monday, where they otherwise likely would have split along conservative-liberal lines.

Justice Clarence Thomas, alone among this colleagues, said he would have resolved the case and held that the provision, known as Section 5, is unconstitutional.

"The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains," Thomas said.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Obama's judicial nominees, including Sotomayor and three others to the U.S. Court of Appeals, raise questions about what role a judge's background should play in deciding cases.

"I'm troubled, I have to say, by President Obama's philosophy of judging," Sessions, a Senate Judiciary Committee member, told USA TODAY and Gannett Washington Bureau reporters. "When he talks about wanting a judge to show empathy, that's very troubling to me."

Sessions, a former prosecutor, said he does not expect Republicans to filibuster Sotomayor's nomination, but he said she is the latest in a pattern of Obama nominees he has found troublesome.

"She seems to be willing to accept that a judge's rulings may be influenced by the judge's personal backgrounds or feelings, which is sort of what President Obama has said," Sessions said.

Hearings for Sotomayor's nomination are scheduled to begin July 13.

Sessions singled out three other nominations: David Hamilton of Indiana for the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit; Andre Davis of Maryland for the Richmond, Va.-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit; and Gerard Lynch of New York for the New York City-based 2nd Circuit.

University of Pittsburgh law professor Arthur Hellman, who has studied judicial appointments, said it is difficult to generalize about any Obama pattern with so few nominations.

"The differences struck me more than any similarities," Hellman said of the nominees. "Lynch is a straight-down-the-middle former prosecutor. With Hamilton, you have someone who happens to have two high-profile cases in two of the most contested areas of the law, abortion and prayer."

Sessions focused on two Hamilton rulings. In one, Hamilton invalidated an Indiana law requiring women seeking abortions to obtain information about the procedure's risks. In the other, Hamilton forbade references to Jesus Christ in opening prayers at the Indiana Legislature. Both decisions were reversed.

U.S. Senate Republicans are in a quandary over the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, aiming to raise pointed questions about her record without angering increasingly influential Hispanic voters.

Senator John Cornyn exemplifies the Republican dilemma over Sotomayor, who is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who seems certain to be confirmed by the Democratic-led Senate as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

One of seven Republicans on the 19-member Senate Judiciary Committee, Cornyn will take part in what he promises will be tough but civil questioning of Sotomayor, Democratic President Barack Obama's choice, at her hearing starting on July 13.

Cornyn is also chairman of the Senate Republican campaign committee that is charged with expanding a shrinking party and winning seats in the overwhelmingly Democratic Senate.

Hispanics, the fastest-growing U.S. minority who make up 15 percent of the population, are a key to any expansion plans.

Hispanics voted by a two-to-one margin for Obama in last year's presidential election. Many Hispanic voters greeted news of Sotomayor's nomination with joy, and Republicans are aware that Hispanics will be watching carefully how she is handled.

The motion, filed late Thursday, argued that the case of Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer does not address the right of gay couples to marry but rather questions whether their marriage must be recognized nationwide by states that have not approved gay marriage.

"This case does not call upon the Court to pass judgment ... on the legal or moral right of same-sex couples, such as plaintiffs here, to be married," the motion states. "Plaintiffs are married, and their challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA") poses a different set of questions."

It's a different case from a recent federal lawsuit by two unmarried gay couples in California who claim a civil right to marry under the U.S. Constitution.

The government said Smelt and Hammer seek a ruling on "whether by virtue of their marital status they are constitutionally entitled to acknowledgment of their union by states that do not recognize same-sex marriage, and whether they are similarly entitled to certain federal benefits.