Enough, enough, enough already on speculation about Kagan

[Peacetrain]

and whether she is gay, straight.. that has nothing to do with the price of tea in China.

Is she qualified for the court.. able to make good judgments..Since she was a Dean of Harvard Law School.. I think her quantification of understanding the law is there.. How she will apply this understanding of the law

Now that is what is important.

[tavalon]

1. DUers are amazing vetters

I've seen little here that makes me think she would be a poor choice. The MSM has told me that as a liberal, I am outraged that Obama would nominate her. I'm amused that the MSM thinks I check with them to decide if I'm outraged.

The fact that something so inconsequential as her sexual orientation is being bandied about. It says to me that they really can't find anything on her.

[DrDan]

2. it might be important for some . . . and I don't think we have a right to tell them what is

important and what is not

[flpoljunkie]

3. Morning Joe obsessed with bringing it up this morning, even with Kerry who was there to discuss

the climate bill he and Lieberman will introduce today. Kerry quickly and deftly changed the subject.

Joe Scarborough knows exactly what he is doing.

[Peacetrain]

4. I caught that..

[lunatica]

5. I find it infantile and tedious

The subject of peoples' sex lives is damn boring to me. Thanks for posting.

[QC]

6. "Sex lives"

Don't you think there's a bit more to people's sexuality than just how they copulate?

[lunatica]

10. You don't really know me well enough to assume what I think or don't think

[QC]

12. True. I can only know you by what you post here, which was,

in that case, reductive, at best, and insulting, really.

[Prism]

7. Sigh, how do people still not understand this?

We sit here for hours with discussions about how great it will be to have another woman on the Court. We discuss how we really could do with more perspective on the Court from people of color, and how great it was that Sotomayor could fill both roles.

But bring up sexual orientation, and it's like someone broke wind in the middle of a homily.

If gender and ethnicity are fair comment when it comes to how the Court is balanced, so is orientation. It's just as much a part of peoples' identities as the first two.

[Peacetrain]

11. And what if she is not gay... Does that affect her qualifications in any way shape or matter?

Her friends say she is not gay..

So what has her sexual orientation got to do with whether she is qualified or not now?

Are we now going to have a question and answer for every prospective justice? Are you gay or are you not gay?

Seriously .. enough is enough..

Judge the woman on her attributes to be a Supreme Court Justice..

[Prism]

14. Who said it does?

No on here said orientation makes someone more or less qualified to be a justice. However, it should be part of someone's basic information.

A justice is on the same level, in my mind, to the President. They're one of nine in co-equal branch of government with enormous powers to interpret the Constitution for decades to come. Do you know how crazy it sounds to appoint someone that powerful for life, and when you ask for their basic biography, people start going "Shhh. It's a secret!" Totally crazy. And we only got that when the LGBT issue came up, making it a homophobic double standard.

How on earth did asking basic biographical information suddenly become some kind of dark inquisition?

It probably speaks to how poorly we vet nominees to begin with. It's getting to the point where you're not allowed to ask anything of them whatsoever. Which, again, strikes me as absurd given the power we invest them with. If a presidential candidate said "Vast swaths of my life are off-limits, so don't ask me about them!" the media would laugh them off the podium.

[Peacetrain]

15. You are seriously starting to creep me out here..

What has not being gay or being gay got to do with ability to be a Justice.

You keep going in some circle I am not getting..

[Prism]

16. What does being a woman have to do with it? Or being an ethnic minority?

Because those two characteristics, how they balance the Court, and the perspectives they may lend a justice are discussed on DU at great length. Orientation is on the same level as those two things. If we can discuss them, why not orientation? Why does that - and that alone - need to become a kind of social DADT?

I'm sorry you find my piping up for my community creepy, but you must understand. Right now, reading hundreds of responses about this, I feel like I'm at a holiday dinner, and that elderly relative at the end of the table said "You know, I met the nicest colored person the other day." I'm thinking "WTF, Uncle Jim!" and he's sitting there smiling, oblivious that he's done anything wrong.

It's very similar in that it's a kind of oblivious homophobia. People have no idea what their words sound like to many people in the community.

And they don't seem to care, either. Just like Uncle Jim.

[Peacetrain]

17. Maybe we are talking apples and oranges here..

Again..I am not following you at all.

Why are you not interested in Kagans qualifications, are they there or are they not?




Edit to add: I said the same thing about Sotomayor.. She needed to be judged on her qualifications.. not that she would be the first Hispanic.. another woman..Its awesome.. but if she had been a Bachmann or Palin type of character who could not fight their way out of a paper bag.. I would NOT have supported her just because she is a woman and I want to see more women in places of power... After all we are over 51% of the population.

[Prism]

18. I am interested in her qualifications

At the moment, from what I've read so far, I think she's qualified for the bench. I don't think I'll eventually like her quite as much as I do Sotomayor, but believing someone is qualified to serve isn't synonymous with "Will only make decisions I like." I think she's far too beholden to the increasingly authoritarian executive, but we're not asking if she has amazing views we'll love. Simply if she is capable and competent enough to analyze cases and make sound decisions. From all I've read, she exceeds these qualifications.

I don't think her orientation has any bearing on whether or not she is fit to reside on the bench. My objection, and great cantankerousness, rests entirely on how orientation has been treated when compared with gender and ethnicity in Democratic discussion. The tone has ranged from it's a dirty secret to an almost open admiration for the closet to the reduction of our identities into sex acts.

I feel, in 2010, we ought to be able to openly wonder if someone's gay without it automatically labeled a smear, a sliming, or a "dragging through the mud" (all categorizations made on DU). The initial line of inquiry originated in the LGBT community out of a brightened wonder if we were about to see our first semi-open gay justice. We wanted to know.

Of course the right-wing picked that up and ran with it. Of course they're going to be homophobic. It's what they do.

But the LGBT community's open question (not a whispering campaign) was met with shocked horror and shame and an heavy attempt to sweep everything under the rug, to treat orientation as something no one ever discusses in polite company, and how dare we?

But LGBTers were totally fine with simply asking the question. A cursory glance of our blogs, papers, and other media sources outside of gay-on-a-leash Joe Solmonese, shows it was a question born of earnest curiosity. And yet a legion of heterosexuals were offended, what, on our behalf? If we weren't bothered, why was everyone else?

Mixed with the tone I cited above, it made for a strange brew with a heavy aroma of shame and discomfort. The tenor of the conversation was so hilariously over-the-top offensive in parts, I didn't even know what to say. I could link you to dozens of posts on DU from the past 48 hours from people who think being gay is all about fucking.

Seriously. That's totally crazy to see in the Democratic Party in 2010.

[Jefferson23]

8. I believe Andrew Sullivan has championed this hypocritical view

that Kagan make clear her sexual identity. To me, that is SUPREME BULLSHIT.

I am disappointed in Obama's selection of Kagan as I do not appreciate what we do know about her
sympathies if you will, for the executive branch.

Is she qualified? Yes. Do I want to see someone like Woods on the court instead, damn right I do. I don't
appreciate the risk factor with Kagan, not at all.


snip* However, several of her works deal with presidential power, particularly her article “Presidential Administration” (LEXIS password required). This is a beautiful, extremely perceptive work, closely observed, brilliantly reasoned, and cautious. In it, Kagan notes the increase of presidential power as Congress builds the administrative and regulatory state. The powers that Congress vests in regulatory agencies are necessarily assumed and controlled by the president. Kagan writes as a detached observer, yet there is much to suggest her admiration for the evolution of the strong presidency in the period after World War II. Her career choices, often pushing back her academic career to accept appointments in Democratic administrations, reflect an attitude of engagement with it. All of this leads to the assumption that as a Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan will be no enemy to the powers of the executive. As my readers know, I am not sympathetic to this attitude. But I am impressed with Kagan’s powers of analysis and presentation just the same. My suspicion–and it’s only a suspicion–is that Kagan is a liberal in the sense of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, someone who has faith in the power of the executive to shape a better and more just state. She pays lip service to the limitations on executive authority contained in the Constitution, but she’s generally in the thrall of executive power.

On this point the Kagan choice probably reflects the perspective of the man who made it, Barack Obama: not the Obama of the 2008 presidential campaign but rather the Obama who has governed since January 20, 2009—broadly continuing the strong executive posture of the Bush team in national security matters.


in full: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/05/hbc-90007020

[Bluenorthwest]

9. When simply wishing to file taxes, or make a family

being gay seems to matter very much to the heterosexual community. Obama says it is all about what God wants, that gay people should not have equal rights. So this notion that you can wallow with McClurkin and Warren, declare straights 'sanctified' and gays not sanctified, and then when it serves, suddenly declare that none of that matters, for the court, although still, not marriage material, it seems.
Qualified, but not sanctified. A real problem reading this self serving hypocrisy.
If 'it does not matter' where is my marriage license? Hmmmmmmm?

[mstinamotorcity]

13. Who gives a sweet pickle

if she is gay. Anytime I see the repugs struggling to pick out the little things to make an issue of it,I know my President must be on to something.And if she is gay and gets accepted to the Highest court in the country, this will be a remarkable quest to equal rights for all.