A letter to Cameron from Justice Sotomayor

WILSON, N.C. (AP) — A U.S. Supreme Court justice has responded to a North Carolina 11-year-old's request for a court ruling helping her same-sex parents.

The Wilson Times (http://bit.ly/10uEoyk ) reports the return letter from Justice Sonia Sotomayor doesn't comment on an upcoming court case, but encourages sixth-grader Cameron Myers Milne of Wilson to keep dreaming big.

Cameron wants the court to invalidate the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Cameron wrote to all nine Supreme Court justices after watching President Barack Obama's January inauguration with her lesbian parents, who were married in New York.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments later this month in a case challenging the federal law, which denies legally married gay and lesbian couples tax, Social Security, and other federal benefits available to heterosexual married couples.