It’s obvious that discussion of Elena Kagan’s sexuality isn’t going to go away. The right has given themselves permission to assume that Kagan is gay because Queerty reported:
The front-runners appear to be federal appellate judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland and U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the lesbian former Harvard Law dean…
…As we understand it, Kagan is out, but has not commented on her sexuality for reporters. But most notable about Kagan is not her sexuality, but her status: While all the Supreme Court’s sitting justices have been judges, Kagan has never held a bench seat.
Queerty appears to be a legitimate gay website and not some smearmongering front rag. I can’t vouch for their reportorial ethics or anything because it’s not a site I’ve ever read before. But, in any case, the righty blogosphere thinks that Queerty’s reporting is decisive and are treating it as such.
This controversy started when disgraced plagiarist Ben Domenech used his space at CBS News to openly speculate that Kagan is a lesbian. To which the White House responded forcefully:
CBS initially refused to pull the posting, prompting Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director who is working with the administration on the high court vacancy, to say: “The fact that they’ve chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010.” She said the network was giving a platform to a blogger “with a history of plagiarism” who was “applying old stereotypes to single women with successful careers.”
Obviously, I have no idea what is true. The White House is on the record saying that the rumors are not true, so they would not want to try to walk that back if it turns out the rumors are true. Matt Yglesias even tweeted that he had been under the impression that Kagan was openly gay, so this is not all coming from the right.
Supreme Court nominations can be kind of cut-throat, and I wouldn’t put it past supporters of some candidates on the short-list to make trouble for Ms. Kagan because she is widely considered the frontrunner for John Paul Stevens’ seat on the court. Of course, the rumors could be true, but I would hope the White House wouldn’t call the rumors ‘lies’ if they were not. That would effectively kill her chances of being nominated, while being gay wouldn’t necessarily. William Jacobson is correct that the public would demand to know about any straight nominee’s spouse or significant other in order to vet for possible conflicts of interest, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for a nominee to attempt to stay closeted through a confirmation process for a lifetime appointment. On the other hand, a candidate cannot prove a negative. I believe, if she were nominated, that Kagan would have to confirm or deny her orientation and any lasting relationships.
Regardless of the truth, I agree with Anita Dunn that older single women are often stereotyped as lesbians and the subject of rumors. What’s weird is were entering a phase where tolerance is the expectation and defensiveness about accusations of homosexuality is seen as homophobic in itself. So, we see EqualRep.com blasting the White House for getting angry about CBS News’s lax editorial practices and demanding that they apologize for treating alleged homosexuality as a slur. I think EqualRep is being a little idealistic. We’ve made progress, but we haven’t reached the point where being gay is not a liability for a nominee to the Supreme Court. The people spreading these rumors do not wish Elena Kagan well. At a minimum, they are merely repeating something they’ve heard. But no one thinks this controversy improves her chances of serving on the Court.
I don’t know anything much about Queerty, but they’ve reported that Meg Whitman, the billionaire Republican who wants to buy the governorship of California, has two bigot sons in and out of Princeton.
Here:
http://www.queerty.com/meg-whitman-is-an-anti-gay-bigot-is-her-son-a-racist-bigot-20091218/
well, that’s hardly well-sourced, is it?
No, and it can be a sneaky backhand way of smearing Kagan. Queerty might be used by Republicans who feed it false information and it might be in cahoots with Republicans.
I was more addressing the perspective of the website from what little I know of it, not defending all their sources.
It’s obvious to me why Republicans are saying this about Kagan. Someone like Wood, they can claim as a DFH. They still want to kill Kagan, to try and embarass Obama, so they resort to personal attacks since they can’t criticize her record, which ought to be somewhat to their liking.
right, but why is a gay website saying it about her?
I don’t know as I know nothing about that website.
still LOL about Wood being a DFH.
G-T-F-O-H with that bull.
I know not YOU, but those that would call her that.
I wasn’t calling her that. I am saying what the Republicans would say(and what they already are).
I hate these stupid games. If she’s qualified, put her up for a vote and be done with it.
she’s definitely qualified. I don’t think I want her to be nominated though, but that has nil to do with her sexual orientation. I’m concerned about her willingness to tell the executive branch that they must use restraint in fighting terrorism.
I read something at Teh Orange about something Kagan wrote before 9/11 where she had some strong words against Executive Branch overreach with respect to what Clinton had done. I don’t think she was too hot on what Bush/Cheney did.
I understand that as Solicitor General, she has to defend whatever it is the Executive Branch does no matter what, so I guess some heavy questioning on her attitudes regarding some of this stuff would be required.
Of course, a new Solicitor General will have to be nominated and confirmed, so that’s a minus against her, too, given the fucknuttery of the GOP.
and she’d have to recuse herself from a lot of cases in her first few years on the Court.
Actually, his nominee is someone completely unexpected: http://tinyurl.com/y5zsnmu
O har, that DFH would never make it thru the nomination process! “Mr. Christ, are you now or have you ever been a communist? Isn’t it true that you having been traveling in a commune of misfits and… and… even living with a prostitute? Haven’t you gone on record as opposing any kind of judicial oversight? Weren’t you drunk and disorderly in the Temple Courtyard?”
Dare I say that Equal Rep isn’t being idealistic, but they’re being completely ridiculous? It’s hurtful to single straight women to see Kagan being treated like this. “Oh, she’s in her 40’s, has a short haircut and is single? She’s a lesbian!” Bullshit. This is just as hurtful for older single straight women as it is for gays. It’s just hurtful all around, and I would expect Equal Rep to understand that.
I seem to recall a lot of comments like this around the time of Sotomayor’s nomination too: not necessarily that she was gay, but that because she’s older and single she was “weird.” I remember one story in particular about her liking Harry Potter, and that there was something wrong or emotionally stunted about her because of this.
The fact is that to get to extremely high-level positions like Sotomayor (formerly a federal appellate judge) and Kagan (Dean of Harvard Law School, now Solicitor General) you have to work incredibly hard for many years in a very competitive profession. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for relationships, so it’s not surprising that Sotomayor got divorced in 1983 and never remarried, or that Elena Kagan apparently never got married (to either a man or a woman), or that both are childless. You never know about someone’s, ahem, private personal life, but I will venture a guess that both women made a lot of sacrifices to get to where they are now, and that included much in the way of their personal lives.
I’m a 27 year-old guy who lives with his girlfriend, so it’s been a real eye-opener for me to see how much of a negative stigma is still attached to older single women. But I imagine to most women of a certain age, married or not, it is no surprise at all.
I just wish the gay media establishment would grow up already. If they want equal treatment, the way to delay that is to gossip like small-town biddies about everybody that might or might not be gay. This shit reminds me of the old parodies of Canadians: “Jim Carrey? He’s Canadian. Shania Twain? She’s Canadian. Mike Meyers? He’s Canadian.”
I suppose I should thank these self-obsessed “journalists” if they helped derail Kagan, but if that was going to happen it should have been on doubts about her civil liberties record, not vapid fluttering about who or what she does or doesn’t screw. I can only hope Queerty is run by Log Cabin Republicans.
Leave Kagan aloooone! I hate rumors about single women in their 40’s. Very sexist whether she is gay or not. They also mentioned she “wore pants alot” in one article I read. Glennzilla has built all kinds of strawmen against her. I’m afraid she is the one Obama wants because she is known for “consensus building” just like O and Roberts, per article in NYT today:
“””Either way, the search for a replacement for the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens is centered on finding a justice who will not just replicate his liberal votes but also bring intellectual heft and powers of persuasion to the court to win the swing vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, according to people close to the search who insisted on anonymity to discuss it. While activists on the left often say they want a liberal Antonin Scalia, the fiery conservative justice, Mr. Obama is looking for a liberal John Roberts, who can forge a five-vote majority rather than write satisfying but ultimately meaningless dissents.
The urgency is greater this year since the Citizens United decision in January, in which the Roberts court threw out precedents to rule that corporations have First Amendment rights to spend money in election campaigns. Advisers said the ruling crystallized for Mr. Obama just how sweeping the chief justice was willing to be. Indeed, some around the president suspect that Chief Justice Roberts, after moving incrementally in his first few years on the bench, has taken a more assertive approach since Mr. Obama took office.””””””
Glennzilla has built all kinds of strawmen against her.
And what might those be?
who cares if she’s gay?
the real problem is that, as glenn greenwald pointed out, her qualifications are questionable and she’s in favor of expanded executive powers. On civil liberties there are worries she’ll push the court further to the right.
this post seems to distract from those very real concerns by amplifying a red herring.