Those irrelevant rumors
Why should we care whether or not Elena Kagan is gay?
Those irrelevant rumors
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
A number of U.S. Supreme Court justices - including William Henry Moody, John Clarke, the esteemed Benjamin Cardozo, Clark McReynolds, and Frank Murphy - were all fortunate to have served during the first half of the 20th century. They were spared the embarrassment of moronic public speculation about their personal lives.
None of those guys ever married. They were, in the parlance of the times, bachelors. But if they were alive and well today, and deemed fit by a president to serve on the high court, various bloggers and idealogues on both sides of the divide would undoubtedly be wondering or assuming or rumoring or faux-reporting that of course or maybe they had to be gay.
In other words, it would be much like the substance-free controversy about Elena Kagan's private life.
Some gay political bloggers are dying to get the skinny about her personal desires; as Andrew Sullivan breathlessly wonders, "Did Obama even ask about it? Are we ever going to know one way or the other?" And even before Kagan was named, the right-wing Family Research Council voiced its concerns about any judge who might be gay, because, after all, "homosexual behavior is a sin and does not reflect God’s created intent and desire for humanity....character and moral rectitude should be key considerations in appointing members of the judiciary."
To which I say, who cares whether Kagan is gay or not?
The case for full disclosure seems to hinge on the proposition that a judge who is gay will automatically be swayed by his or her sexual orientation to tweak the legal issues in order to rule in favor of gays. As Sullivan himself writes, "It would be bizarre to argue that a justice's sexual orientation will not in some way affect his or her judgment" of gay issues before the court.
That insulting line of reasoning implies that gay judges, simply by virtue of being gay, lack the requisite intellectual equipment to assess a gay-related case purely on the merits (or lack thereof), and rule in accordance with law and precedent.
And it's hard to see why the so-called mystery about Kagan's private life matters one way or the other - given the fact that she has taken positions both sympathetic to gays (by assailing Don't Ask Don't Tell as "a profound wrong," a mainstream stance echoed these days by Defense Secretary Robert Gates), and antithetical to gays (she stated last year that "there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage").
But here's the non-issue from another perspective: In 2003, six high court judges - Kennedy, O'Connor, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer - ruled in a landmark case that it's OK for gays to have private consensual sex. Their constitutional arguments in favor of gays were detailed and substantive. Are we supposed to assume that if an unmarried female judge had concurred in the majority decision, she would have done so only because her (presumed/rumored) gay orientation had propelled her in that direction?
It's a sad commentary on the times that Kagan's close friends have felt the need to come forward and deny that the nominee is gay ("not that there's anything wrong with that," as the characters said on Seinfeld). It would appear that Kagan stayed single due to her professional single-mindedness (a common occurrence among career women, particularly in the legal world, according to a 2007 study by MIT). Whatever. The sex watchdogs will play this one out, as befits the impulse to pry, and then it will be over. Once Kagan dons the robes, we'll be spared this kind of talk - at least until the next target invariably comes along.
The ones who are obsessed over this issue is the leftist media and leftist pundits. Who needs to get a life?— CD75- Just finished reading the last blog when Polman posted a new item. Regarding the last one. The double-talk over taxes and the deficit since 2001 is astounding. "The tax cut didn't cause the deficit, it was the spending." Huh? Now it's true that if the 2001 legislation consisted of a trillion-dollar tax cut over ten years and a trillion of spending cuts over 10 years, the deficit would have been less. But that isn't what happened of course. Now which trillion-dollar figure caused the deficit? The tax cuts that were passed, or the spending cuts that weren't passed? You'd have to be a theologian to answer that one. Or a right-wing ideologue. And also, which trillion dollars of spending is guilty? The wars or the entitlements? Another theological question. Are you republicans all nuts out there?— liberal
- Cd75. Once again you show your ignorance. You really need to get your head out of faux news et all. The right-wing Family Research Council is NOT a liberal org.
- I agree with DP. Who cares?— pj katauskas
- And incidentally, a fact about the 2001 tax cuts that everybody has now forgotten. The reason that the tax cuts sunset at the end of 2010 is the very fact that the 2001 legislation did NOT have spending cuts. Thus it had to have a finite term in order to avoid coming under Senate rules that would have allowed it to be filibustered. If the 2001 legislation had accordingly required 60 votes in the Senate, it probably would not have passed. Under the same rules, the recent health care legislation was able to be passed by a straight majority since under its own terms it would not increase the deficit.— liberal
Nothing wrong if Kagan is gay or straight. I see the left getting involved in the speculation so they can use it as a weapon against anyone on the right who would ask her a tough question or not support the nomination. They also need it so they can hold her up as someone they can identify with. "History is made. The first openly gay Supreme Court Justice." The left loves that stuff.— jmc
CD75, way off base (again). It's the right that is obsessed with whether someone is gay or not.— potus- The real question is, is her orientation any of our business? And the answer, of course, is NO. And Liberal, to answer your question from 2:36, yes, they are.— yoda
- The left blogsphere is all frothy over her preferences. Not a peep of it on fox news or the WSJ. The real story is the how much she looks like Kevin James (King of Queens, Mall Cop). Janet Reno is actually starting to look good.— CD75
- Is it too much to ask that Obama nominate a woman that is more pleasing to the eye? Perhaps Fox's Megan Kelly would have been a better choice.— Alvenada
- liberal, you don't seem to understand the difference between a tax rate and a revenue. A rate is just a percentage that you charge, a revenue is the actual money that you collect. Revenues increased every year after the cuts, reaching an all time high in 2006. This was due to the performance of the economy (bigger pull of taxable income to pull from). Making the assumption that revenues would have been a trillion dollars higher had the tax cuts not been enacted is speculation. You don't know if the economy would have been as successful, so you can't make that claim. We do know that spending increased, this is evident and can be measured by actual results. The increase of spending outpaced the increase in revenue, causing bigger deficits, and a larger debt. Of course, I don't know why I even bother to try to explain these simple concepts to you or your ilk. You are a liberal, and that is your religion. You don't believe in facts or logic, and you are probably not intelligent enough to understand them anyway, even if you were open enough to consider them.— pete317
- CD75, actually, she looks a little more like comedian Dom Irrera than Kevin James.— pete317
- pete317 : actually, that's what economists, the CBO, the treasury department, etc. do. ALL analysis indicated that revenue was lower than it would have been without the tax cuts (that's not a bad thing, if spending was reduced as well). Even the Heritage foundation's analysis showed this (and they are far from liberal).... I try (sometimes unsuccessfully) not to attack someone's intellect. But if I were so inclined, liberal's is one of the last I would do so to. And if we're talking simple concepts, lowering the %, keeping all things constant, lowers the revenue. that's about as simple as it gets. Making the assumption that the economy grew due to the tax cuts is speculation. Of course, I don't know why I even bother to try to explain these simple concepts to you or your ilk.— still_independent
- It's Pat!— puttinonthefoil
- THE BRILLIANCE OF STILL INDEPENDENT!: I QUOTE " I try (sometimes unsuccessfully) not to attack someone's intellect. But if I were so inclined, liberal's is one of the last I would do so to. And if we're talking simple concepts, lowering the %, keeping all things constant, lowers the revenue. that's about as simple as it gets. Making the assumption that the economy grew due to the tax cuts is speculation. Of course, I don't know why I even bother to try to explain these simple concepts to you or your ilk."----------------------- Looks like the " Independent " is quick to rush in to defend the " liberal ". I am wondering where that independent spirit is. Seems like your more glued to liberal orthodoxy than anything else. We know, we know. In liberal/" independent" la la land all magical solutions come from a new spending program in D.C. Going so far as to tell us we will reduce the deficit by spending 950 billion dollars. That one didn't even pass the laugh test. So you and Liberal keep flagelating one another as a collective sigh of anyone who has ever run a business laughs at your posts.— mgm65
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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