Put a Lesbian on Supreme Court Even If Kagan Isn’t: Ann Woolner
Commentary by Ann Woolner
May 19 (Bloomberg) — Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, it now seems that Elena Kagan is straight. So say longtime friends, including that notorious hetero, ex- Governor Eliot Spitzer, who knows a heterosexual woman when he sees one.
Speaking of when they were both at Princeton University, Spitzer told Politico, “I did not go out with her, but other guys did.â€
“I’ve known her for most of her adult life and I know she’s straight,†Sarah Walzer told Politico last week. As roommates in law school, the two used to talk about “who in our class was cute, who we would like to date.â€
There are two good things about this development.
First, it’s now OK to write about whether it’s OK to write about it. You can’t force out of the closet someone who is actually heterosexual.
Second, perhaps the stereotyping that helped animate the rumor has suffered a hit along with the rumor itself.
Let’s take a moment to rebut those assumptions: You usually can’t tell by looking whether someone is gay; there are plenty of reasons why women reach their 50s without marrying; there is nothing especially lesbianish about a woman driven to succeed at her career.
What isn’t good about the evidence that Kagan is a member of the sexual majority is that the Supreme Court presumably will remain an all-hetero bench. This is too bad.
Different Life Experience
An openly gay justice would bring life experiences to the court that no other justice has before. This isn’t to say that same-sex orientation requires you to read the law differently, or that heterosexual judges will necessarily give short shrift to the rights of a minority.
It was a presumably all-hetero court that in 2003 voted 6-3 to strike down a Texas law that criminalized gay sex.
Still, it’s hard to imagine a gay justice dissenting on that one. Life experiences do count. They seemed to have counted
17 years earlier when the court was considering the constitutionality of a Georgia law that made gay sodomy a crime.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever met a homosexual,†Justice Lewis Powell remarked to one of his law clerks in 1986 while considering the matter, the astonished clerk would later recount.
In fact, Powell had unknowingly met several, including the man to whom he was speaking. Carter Cabell Chinnis Jr. was the latest in a long line of gay men Powell had hired as clerks, Chinnis told the authors of “Courting Justice: Gay Men and Women v. the Supreme Court.â€
In his questions, the justice showed a stunning ignorance of what it meant to be gay.
Decisive Vote
Powell, who had vacillated on the case, wound up casting the fifth and decisive vote to uphold Georgia’s sodomy law. He wrote the majority opinion that found no constitutional protection for gay sex.
Still, he wasn’t sure. The ruling “was probably a mistake,†Powell told an audience at New York University four years later, when in retirement.
On that close a question, it’s a good assumption that with a greater understanding of homosexuality, Powell wouldn’t have made that mistake.
I’m not proposing any sexual orientation test for the high court, any more than I’d support a religious test.
But let’s not pretend that the law is so clearly written and simple to interpret that people from different backgrounds see it the same way. If that were true, we wouldn’t need an appeals court at all.
Large Cross
Consider the high court’s 5-4 ruling last month allowing a large cross to stand in a national preserve that memorializes the war dead.
It’s impossible to imagine a Jew, Muslim or atheist concluding that their family members are honored by the cross.
And yet the majority said that, because the cross so commonly represents sacrifice and heroism, its placement honors all those who gave their lives for their country. The two Jewish justices joined two Christians in dissent.
Not everyone needs one, but having a minority in the group gives the rest of the crowd a guide into the majority’s blind spots.
Homophobia still runs through high schools and middle schools. But for the most part, young people just don’t care much about sexual orientation and don’t understand why their parents do.
And even the older public is coming around. Three-fourths of Americans favor letting gays serve openly in the military, for example.
Powerful Minority
Still, a vocal and powerful minority would use homosexuality as grounds to try to defeat a gay nominee.
That is another reason why the upshot of this flap is disappointing. We’re still not at the point where a minority sexual orientation would be treated with the same attitude as a racial or religious minority.
When it comes to sexuality, we will have to wait for the day when a Supreme Court nominee who is “one of them†could actually be greeted with enthusiasm for the chance to expand the knowledge and understanding of that tiny club.
« High-End Retailers Eyeing Brooklyn Danny’s on Court Opens Today »
411 Open Thread
Categories: Open Thread
By Brownstoner at May 19, 2010 9:16 AM | Comments (411)
Share
411 Comments
By DeadCatBounce on May 19, 2010 9:19 AM
THE RETURN OF BLANKENSTEIN
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. racked up trading profits for itself every day last quarter. Clients who followed the firm’s investment advice fared far worse.
Seven of the investment bank’s nine “recommended top trades for 2010†have been money losers for investors who adopted the New York-based firm’s advice, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from a Goldman Sachs research note sent yesterday.
By daveinbedstuy on May 19, 2010 9:20 AM
500,000???? Whatever happened to that goal??? Did Mr. B backpedal on giving out the cash award???
By more4less on May 19, 2010 9:22 AM
500000
By benson on May 19, 2010 9:22 AM
Arlen, Arlen, wake up!! Seems you’ve fainted after hearing the bad news.
Go sit over there with your other soon-to-be-ex-Senators, and I’ll prepare a cup of tea for you.
By CGar on May 19, 2010 9:23 AM
Thurston, I watched the Gilligan’s Island portion of “Sitcom Scandals” last night, which raised the age old question, who is your favorite, Mary Ann or Ginger?
(And, BTW, don’t pour me a saucer of milk, but Tina Louise did NOT age well. She looks AWFUL. Dawn Wells looks great though!)
By IMBY on May 19, 2010 9:24 AM
19,402,543
By more4less on May 19, 2010 9:24 AM
anyone has any experience using the Adobe OpenOffice suite (free open source version of Microsoft Office suite)?
By randolph on May 19, 2010 9:25 AM
just catching up on yesterday…something rob said….
“i wasted money seeing that idiotic movie documentary about him :-/”
exit through the gift shop is one of the funniest, smartest documentaries in a long time- if not ever. just becuase you are an idiot and too simple minded to get it, that does not make movie idiotic.
rob, you should really sack up and learn a few things one of these days, instead of just spewing sarcasm and dismissive thoughts across this blog.
By more4less on May 19, 2010 9:25 AM
Benson, lots of incumbents will be doing Consulting work soon.
By benson on May 19, 2010 9:26 AM
I’m a Mary Ann guy!
The other great 60’s sitcom question: which was a better show, The Munsters or The Adams Family? Munsters Man myself.
By more4less on May 19, 2010 9:29 AM
Munsters
By daveinbedstuy on May 19, 2010 9:29 AM
randolph, I’ve met rob and from all I know about you, you are a moronic jackass compared to him.
If someone doesn’t like a movie, they don’t like a movie, that’s all. A lot of so-called documentaries are moronic and simple minded, much like yourself.
Why don’t you go play in the road now.
By CGar on May 19, 2010 9:30 AM
Addams Family for me, Morticia.
By Butterfly on May 19, 2010 9:32 AM
I need some interior decorating help!!
so i want to paint my bedroom a nice fresh coat for spring… normally i love color, but i think im going to paint it bright gallery white. im wondering if that color would annoy me, but since the walls are darkish colors now, i would need to paint it white anyway if i wanted to paint some new colors..
here’s my thing with white.. i normally keep my room very neat and clean and for the most part uncluttered, but i have tons of paintings on the walls and lots of shelves filled with video games and fake trees and plants and large branches and stuff in my room for decoration… the walls are brown and green right now and everything seems to go together as it is, but i get tired of the same color after a year or so so i want to change it.. the only problem i have with rooms that have white walls is that white walls make rooms look really messy unless the rooms are totally minimalist. and i dont know if my furniture will go with white walls at all really. it’s mostly all mismatched furniture, black couch, dark wood table, shelves of various colors, and a giant honking television that i wish i never busted my back to bring into my room (it takes up like 1/4 of my room it’s that large :-/ )
so would gallery white walls be a bad color choice? also i do smoke in there and im not in denial of the fact that smoking stains EVERYTHING, especially light colored things.. i’d imagine flat paint would get stained faster than latex? also how the hell do you paint behind a radiator? the wall behind the radiator i painted brown a while back and it was easy cuz i painted it a dark color (i put a rag sopped in paint on a stick and just kept shoving it behind the radiator until it was all brown, but im thinking that’s gonna be a pain in the butt to get back to white?)
also the hardwood floor is an odd shade of light orange-ish type of color… i used to always use a rug but then after i threw out the rug i was like wow i prefer just having no rug, but if i paint the walls bright white i think im going to have to get a rug as bright white walls and that color floor would just be a horrid combination.
help!
just read an email from the company that i use a dog walker from. i really really wish in the emails they would stop referring to peoples dogs as their babies. my dog is not my baby, it’s my dog. if it was my baby i’d be in f’ing section 8 right now!
*rob*
By DeadCatBounce on May 19, 2010 9:32 AM
Addams family. Loved Gomez’s ticker tape.
By Petebklyn on May 19, 2010 9:33 AM
I see ‘Ginger’ regularly at my YMCA – and you all wish you could look 1/2 as good as she does at her age. What age that is I’m not sure(76?). And don’t forget, she is orig. a brooklyn girl, so be nice.
M4L, I don’t know how likely those punches and kicks will work. Rob is likely to whip out a Hello Kitty sock full of nickles and whoop Cargar’s ass with it!
As you can plainly see, Entenmann’s chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, and a tall glass (or 4) of milk with ice, was, at times, my preferred meal.
quote:
I’m a roll around on the sidewalk and in the gutter throwing punches and going home with a black eye kind of fighter. (And I have witnesses to that one!)
oh please… im thinking it would be Dynasty than anything else.
“but whateves am not going to get too nuts about it – you know?”
Yes, I DO know. I like FOOD! : D
At one point some years ago, I lost my appetite. I was insanely stressed out due to work and a sick parent. I had a hard time eating anything more solid than a yogurt. So I’m ok with being ‘normal’ weight vs. ‘thin’.
rob and cgar rolling around on sidewalk?
Isn’t that a side show in Coney Island?
WOW…look at this story…LOL…..
Put a Lesbian on Supreme Court Even If Kagan Isn’t: Ann Woolner
Commentary by Ann Woolner
May 19 (Bloomberg) — Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, it now seems that Elena Kagan is straight. So say longtime friends, including that notorious hetero, ex- Governor Eliot Spitzer, who knows a heterosexual woman when he sees one.
Speaking of when they were both at Princeton University, Spitzer told Politico, “I did not go out with her, but other guys did.â€
“I’ve known her for most of her adult life and I know she’s straight,†Sarah Walzer told Politico last week. As roommates in law school, the two used to talk about “who in our class was cute, who we would like to date.â€
There are two good things about this development.
First, it’s now OK to write about whether it’s OK to write about it. You can’t force out of the closet someone who is actually heterosexual.
Second, perhaps the stereotyping that helped animate the rumor has suffered a hit along with the rumor itself.
Let’s take a moment to rebut those assumptions: You usually can’t tell by looking whether someone is gay; there are plenty of reasons why women reach their 50s without marrying; there is nothing especially lesbianish about a woman driven to succeed at her career.
What isn’t good about the evidence that Kagan is a member of the sexual majority is that the Supreme Court presumably will remain an all-hetero bench. This is too bad.
Different Life Experience
An openly gay justice would bring life experiences to the court that no other justice has before. This isn’t to say that same-sex orientation requires you to read the law differently, or that heterosexual judges will necessarily give short shrift to the rights of a minority.
It was a presumably all-hetero court that in 2003 voted 6-3 to strike down a Texas law that criminalized gay sex.
Still, it’s hard to imagine a gay justice dissenting on that one. Life experiences do count. They seemed to have counted
17 years earlier when the court was considering the constitutionality of a Georgia law that made gay sodomy a crime.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever met a homosexual,†Justice Lewis Powell remarked to one of his law clerks in 1986 while considering the matter, the astonished clerk would later recount.
In fact, Powell had unknowingly met several, including the man to whom he was speaking. Carter Cabell Chinnis Jr. was the latest in a long line of gay men Powell had hired as clerks, Chinnis told the authors of “Courting Justice: Gay Men and Women v. the Supreme Court.â€
In his questions, the justice showed a stunning ignorance of what it meant to be gay.
Decisive Vote
Powell, who had vacillated on the case, wound up casting the fifth and decisive vote to uphold Georgia’s sodomy law. He wrote the majority opinion that found no constitutional protection for gay sex.
Still, he wasn’t sure. The ruling “was probably a mistake,†Powell told an audience at New York University four years later, when in retirement.
On that close a question, it’s a good assumption that with a greater understanding of homosexuality, Powell wouldn’t have made that mistake.
I’m not proposing any sexual orientation test for the high court, any more than I’d support a religious test.
But let’s not pretend that the law is so clearly written and simple to interpret that people from different backgrounds see it the same way. If that were true, we wouldn’t need an appeals court at all.
Large Cross
Consider the high court’s 5-4 ruling last month allowing a large cross to stand in a national preserve that memorializes the war dead.
It’s impossible to imagine a Jew, Muslim or atheist concluding that their family members are honored by the cross.
And yet the majority said that, because the cross so commonly represents sacrifice and heroism, its placement honors all those who gave their lives for their country. The two Jewish justices joined two Christians in dissent.
Not everyone needs one, but having a minority in the group gives the rest of the crowd a guide into the majority’s blind spots.
Homophobia still runs through high schools and middle schools. But for the most part, young people just don’t care much about sexual orientation and don’t understand why their parents do.
And even the older public is coming around. Three-fourths of Americans favor letting gays serve openly in the military, for example.
Powerful Minority
Still, a vocal and powerful minority would use homosexuality as grounds to try to defeat a gay nominee.
That is another reason why the upshot of this flap is disappointing. We’re still not at the point where a minority sexual orientation would be treated with the same attitude as a racial or religious minority.
When it comes to sexuality, we will have to wait for the day when a Supreme Court nominee who is “one of them†could actually be greeted with enthusiasm for the chance to expand the knowledge and understanding of that tiny club.
« High-End Retailers Eyeing Brooklyn Danny’s on Court Opens Today »
411 Open Thread
Categories: Open Thread
By Brownstoner at May 19, 2010 9:16 AM | Comments (411)
Share
411 Comments
By DeadCatBounce on May 19, 2010 9:19 AM
THE RETURN OF BLANKENSTEIN
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. racked up trading profits for itself every day last quarter. Clients who followed the firm’s investment advice fared far worse.
Seven of the investment bank’s nine “recommended top trades for 2010†have been money losers for investors who adopted the New York-based firm’s advice, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from a Goldman Sachs research note sent yesterday.
By daveinbedstuy on May 19, 2010 9:20 AM
500,000???? Whatever happened to that goal??? Did Mr. B backpedal on giving out the cash award???
By more4less on May 19, 2010 9:22 AM
500000
By benson on May 19, 2010 9:22 AM
Arlen, Arlen, wake up!! Seems you’ve fainted after hearing the bad news.
Go sit over there with your other soon-to-be-ex-Senators, and I’ll prepare a cup of tea for you.
By CGar on May 19, 2010 9:23 AM
Thurston, I watched the Gilligan’s Island portion of “Sitcom Scandals” last night, which raised the age old question, who is your favorite, Mary Ann or Ginger?
(And, BTW, don’t pour me a saucer of milk, but Tina Louise did NOT age well. She looks AWFUL. Dawn Wells looks great though!)
By IMBY on May 19, 2010 9:24 AM
19,402,543
By more4less on May 19, 2010 9:24 AM
anyone has any experience using the Adobe OpenOffice suite (free open source version of Microsoft Office suite)?
By randolph on May 19, 2010 9:25 AM
just catching up on yesterday…something rob said….
“i wasted money seeing that idiotic movie documentary about him :-/”
exit through the gift shop is one of the funniest, smartest documentaries in a long time- if not ever. just becuase you are an idiot and too simple minded to get it, that does not make movie idiotic.
rob, you should really sack up and learn a few things one of these days, instead of just spewing sarcasm and dismissive thoughts across this blog.
By more4less on May 19, 2010 9:25 AM
Benson, lots of incumbents will be doing Consulting work soon.
By benson on May 19, 2010 9:26 AM
I’m a Mary Ann guy!
The other great 60’s sitcom question: which was a better show, The Munsters or The Adams Family? Munsters Man myself.
By more4less on May 19, 2010 9:29 AM
Munsters
By daveinbedstuy on May 19, 2010 9:29 AM
randolph, I’ve met rob and from all I know about you, you are a moronic jackass compared to him.
If someone doesn’t like a movie, they don’t like a movie, that’s all. A lot of so-called documentaries are moronic and simple minded, much like yourself.
Why don’t you go play in the road now.
By CGar on May 19, 2010 9:30 AM
Addams Family for me, Morticia.
By Butterfly on May 19, 2010 9:32 AM
I need some interior decorating help!!
so i want to paint my bedroom a nice fresh coat for spring… normally i love color, but i think im going to paint it bright gallery white. im wondering if that color would annoy me, but since the walls are darkish colors now, i would need to paint it white anyway if i wanted to paint some new colors..
here’s my thing with white.. i normally keep my room very neat and clean and for the most part uncluttered, but i have tons of paintings on the walls and lots of shelves filled with video games and fake trees and plants and large branches and stuff in my room for decoration… the walls are brown and green right now and everything seems to go together as it is, but i get tired of the same color after a year or so so i want to change it.. the only problem i have with rooms that have white walls is that white walls make rooms look really messy unless the rooms are totally minimalist. and i dont know if my furniture will go with white walls at all really. it’s mostly all mismatched furniture, black couch, dark wood table, shelves of various colors, and a giant honking television that i wish i never busted my back to bring into my room (it takes up like 1/4 of my room it’s that large :-/ )
so would gallery white walls be a bad color choice? also i do smoke in there and im not in denial of the fact that smoking stains EVERYTHING, especially light colored things.. i’d imagine flat paint would get stained faster than latex? also how the hell do you paint behind a radiator? the wall behind the radiator i painted brown a while back and it was easy cuz i painted it a dark color (i put a rag sopped in paint on a stick and just kept shoving it behind the radiator until it was all brown, but im thinking that’s gonna be a pain in the butt to get back to white?)
also the hardwood floor is an odd shade of light orange-ish type of color… i used to always use a rug but then after i threw out the rug i was like wow i prefer just having no rug, but if i paint the walls bright white i think im going to have to get a rug as bright white walls and that color floor would just be a horrid combination.
help!
just read an email from the company that i use a dog walker from. i really really wish in the emails they would stop referring to peoples dogs as their babies. my dog is not my baby, it’s my dog. if it was my baby i’d be in f’ing section 8 right now!
*rob*
By DeadCatBounce on May 19, 2010 9:32 AM
Addams family. Loved Gomez’s ticker tape.
By Petebklyn on May 19, 2010 9:33 AM
I see ‘Ginger’ regularly at my YMCA – and you all wish you could look 1/2 as good as she does at her age. What age that is I’m not sure(76?). And don’t forget, she is orig. a brooklyn girl, so be nice.
By
M4L, I don’t know how likely those punches and kicks will work. Rob is likely to whip out a Hello Kitty sock full of nickles and whoop Cargar’s ass with it!
As you can plainly see, Entenmann’s chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, and a tall glass (or 4) of milk with ice, was, at times, my preferred meal.
CGar, kick the shin or Kneecap then go for the knockout punch
quote:
I’m a roll around on the sidewalk and in the gutter throwing punches and going home with a black eye kind of fighter. (And I have witnesses to that one!)
oh please… im thinking it would be Dynasty than anything else.
*rob*
Slopefarm: dona — I think he’s kidding when he does that.
Yes, it’s cute.
“but whateves am not going to get too nuts about it – you know?”
Yes, I DO know. I like FOOD! : D
At one point some years ago, I lost my appetite. I was insanely stressed out due to work and a sick parent. I had a hard time eating anything more solid than a yogurt. So I’m ok with being ‘normal’ weight vs. ‘thin’.