"Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been a Lesbian?"
Oh, yeah, one other thought. Andrew Sullivan has found a new quixotic cause – apparently, in his view, all nominees to the Supreme Court are now supposed to answer the question in the title to this post. (Well, all female ones.)
All I’ll say is that if Sullivan really means what he says, I encourage him to ask this question of Elena Kagan in person and in public. The question has nothing whatsoever to do with her qualifications for the office in question, so I see no reason why the Administration should field it. But, I admit, it’s a question that is obviously interesting – I know I would like to know the answer, and I’m sure many others would as well.
So all we’re talking about is propriety: is it just plain rude to ask somebody “are you gay?” or is it not? I think it is. That’s not because I think there’s anything shameful in being gay. I just think questions of personal identity like that are really up to the person in question to broach at the time and place of their choosing – and to the audience of their choosing.
Sullivan appears to disagree, but I question whether he really means it. I think the only way to find out the answer to that question is for Sullivan to have the courage of his convictions: ask her, in person, in public, not through official channels or rhetorically on his blog, and then blog how he feels about the experience afterward.
Has Sullivan ever disclosed exactly how he came to be infected with HIV? I mean, how we behave is certainly more revealing than whatever label we choose to adopt.
Mike
— MBunge · May 11, 06:50 PM · #
hm. people get asked if they’re gay a lot initially in my social circles. mostly if someone might be interested you want to make discrete inquiries as to probabilities….
— razib · May 11, 06:52 PM · #
Noah,
Why do you want to know what her sexual orientation is? I don’t see how this question is “obviously interesting” at all. What does it matter?
— Tim O'Rourke · May 11, 06:52 PM · #
Sullivan feels that not-out gays can only be closeted because they are essentially a kind of coward that inadvertently reinforces the conventional negative view of homosexuality.
He would say that heterosexuals never consider any aspect of their sexual orientation to be something of a “private nature” – or of any nature at all – they are oblivious to these kinds of thoughts and are by default completely open to everyone about their identity. They are rarely, if ever, asked about their orientation, and if asked, would immediately give an answer of straight without taking time to notice that the question might be rude or objectionable in another context.
So Sullivan would probably respond that the whole idea of a “private identity” can only apply to homosexuals, and he would insist that there be no such concepts in his drive for maximal equality.
An example of “private information” question that might constitute a rude question applied equally to everybody could be the “How much do you make / what kind of car do you drive” question. Cultural norms (so far) keep us from being blatant in our income inquiries as seeking a bit of personal truth that a person might not like to volunteer.
— Indy · May 11, 07:00 PM · #
sully update.
IMHO, that has a higher probability of correctness.
“So what if the third option is correct and Obama is actually being extremely shrewd?
If he or Kagan had announced her sexual orientation from the get-go, it would allow the Christianist right to portray her nomination as a “homosexual-lesbian” take-over of the court, enabled by a radical commie/Muslim president. But by remaining silent and ambiguous on this, the Obama peeps can either depend on the whole thing going away – or wait for some kind of outing, and capitalize on the inevitable sympathy that would prompt among senators, and make her confirmation a shoo-in. It would be better for Obama to provoke such an outing from his “left”. That would allow senators to rally around the closet their generation cherishes and defend a person from “charges” that invade her “privacy.” Win-win, right?
The president can say, appealing to the middle, that he respects privacy and has reluctantly allowed Kagan to come out under despicable pressure from people like me. Then he dares the Christianist right to vote against her merely because she is a discreet lesbian. And so his jujitsu becomes a triumph for gay rights, and his nominee, who I suspect is far more left-liberal than anyone now believes, helps shape the court for a generation.
Where’s that rope again?”
Now…im not sure Kagan is super left-liberal.
Because the right has been pithed by partisanship, and swallowed Kylon’s populist poison, they have completely forgotten their job description. They are supposed to maintain a tension between the two poles.
Every citizen deserves representation. And someone has to represent their views.
Dr. Manzi tried to explain this to me once, but i was too pissed off over Palin to get it.
I think nearly everyone misjudges Obama.
He’s not a god, he makes mistakes, but he’s the best 11D chess player i have ever seen.
There are subtle signs of the long game….his appointment of Dr. Francis Collins for example.
The most interesting thing I learned was from Toobin….he said that Kagan got along with everyone in college.
Now for me…college has always been a passionate running war, skirmishing, debating and dueling ideas.
Who could get along with everyone in college?
Possibly a high IQ empath….and a superrational.
I think Obama might be a superrational empath as well.
But I know he believes that he is the president of all Americans, even the ones that hate him, and that America needs a sane and healthy opposition party to maintain the tension balance that informs the Grand Experiment.
— matoko_chan · May 11, 07:56 PM · #
And of course, empathy and altruism are complete anathema to the “Constitution in Exile” posse.
I just have two quotes for that.
Thomas Jefferson— The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
Takeshi Kovacs— The skeletal grip of a corpse’s hand round eggs trying to hatch.
— matoko_chan · May 11, 08:28 PM · #
I don’t have a very strong view on this, but two thoughts:
(1) While it might be considered rude in some circles to ask this question of a stranger, the same could be said of many questions journalists routinely (and properly) ask public figures, so I don’t know how good a metric that is.
(2) There are cases where a justice with a spouse or long-term partner might have to recuse herself because of potential conflicts of interest. (e.g. the spouse/partner works or has worked for one of the parties) That would make the identity of a prospective justice’s partner a matter of legitimate public interest, even if their orientation as such is not.
— Julian Sanchez · May 11, 08:30 PM · #
No, matoko he’s truly the least empathic person, you can imagine. The way he could ‘throw his grandmother under the bus’ to validate a talking point,
his bone chilling testimony in the ‘born alive’ bill, his utter inability to relate to the questioner in one of the townhalls about his mother’s
‘generosity of spirit’
— ian cormac · May 12, 01:12 AM · #
ian, you don’t have a clue about what empathy means.
or superrational.
may i refer you to Hofstadters Metamagical Themas and the Platonia dilemma?
— matoko_chan · May 12, 01:19 AM · #
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— Christian Louboutin Sale · May 12, 03:53 AM · #
I agree with Mr. Sale.
— J Mann · May 12, 02:47 PM · #
J Mann, here is my daily epiphany.
In a representative government, even the stupid and evil deserve representation.
But whoevah represents them should accept the responsibility of educating them and not just lash them into a frenzy to scam their votes.
— matoko_chan · May 12, 03:18 PM · #
Noah,
I’m curious, because I thought you were an Orthodox Jew, why don’t you think there is anything shameful about being gay?
— Jeff Singer · May 12, 03:38 PM · #
Noah,
I want you to know I love cats. I mean really love them – all of them except the hairless rodent-looking ones.
I have cat posters everywhere and chat on all the feline forums. I sleep with three tabbies and feed strays. My parents are ashamed and think I have a problem, but I have embraced my love and am happier for it.
So I could only be happier by telling you. I had to get this off my chest because I really feel I wasn’t being myself before, and now you know me – I am not hiding my identity any longer. I am a cat person and proud of it. And I am so proud you must know inorder to better judge the context and worth of my comments.
And everyone must know and everyone should know how many others are just like me (we are not freaks and it shall be confirmed), so I will call upon all cat-lovers to stand together as a natural community.
To that end, all identities must be outed. How can we assess your own arguments if we do not know all your orientations and preferences? You should share that – it is dishonest, inauthentic, and deceitful to yourself and us not to tell us up front so we know what to make of you and where you are coming from. And you will be happier. So tell us, or we will ask and pry.
It may offend your old-fashioned, button-down “decency” and sense of propriety, but it is for the good of all and our discourse to know your favorite animals, colors, sex, positions, sports, and especially music.
— Ms. Mew · May 12, 03:56 PM · #
Noah, the only people who seem to care about Kagan’s sexual orientation much are you (2 posts), Sully and Dobson and Focus on the Family.
Given that the TPM is likely 99.5% conservative christian at this point, and the TPM has got the GOP by the shorthairs, I just don’t think any pundits, much less any senators, are going to openly acknowledge the christofascist position on Kagan.
Gerson, Parker and Brooks are going the elitist angle.
— matoko_chan · May 12, 03:59 PM · #
Well, lets put it this way – if she doesn’t want to say if she’s gay or not, then it’s clearly something that’s distressing to her to discuss. Therefore to threaten to reveal it could cause her to sway her opinion on a decision.
Not a good case to make, but it balances the “it’s impolite to ask”. Why doesn’t she just come out and respond to it and give Sully something else to obsess about?
— m00se · May 12, 04:07 PM · #
Never ask if someone is gay. They’ll be pissed if they aren’t and pissed if they are. Of course if you want to start a bar fight, this is probably one of the best ways to do it.
— mdb · May 12, 04:16 PM · #
Frankly, it is mysogynistic to assume that a single, intelligent professional woman has only one explanation for not being married: that she is a lesbian. You notice that only men are pressing Kagan to reveal her sexual identity. Did any of you cretins ever figure out why most successful professional women are either single or divorced? Most men are not interested in women who can outthink them and who work in highly-paid positions. It takes a man with a lot of moxie not to feel threatened or jealous of a woman who succeeds. It is beyond cruel to make public demands of Kagan about her sexual preference or even if she is interested in sex. I notice that Justice Thomas’s collection of pornography did not receive much public notice after the Anita Hill fracas. Is he entitled to have privacy because it is a man’s prerogative to be a little sexually weird? I think a lot of this interrogation of Kagan’s sexual leanings, if she has any, is just traditional male chauvinist pigness masquerading as a wish for complete honesty.
— Aunt Laura · May 12, 04:26 PM · #
You really get stars in your eyes when you talk about Obama, don’t you?
News Flash – Obama’s not that smart but he IS an accomplished liar.
— tomaig · May 12, 05:12 PM · #
Aunt Lara – they are essentially asking about Kagan’s pornography collection. At least Thomas’ sexual predalictions were clear from the get go.
Please don’t trot out that old saw about the oppressed female professional. My wife was out of the workforce for 9 years and stepped right back into a 6 figure job. I keep seeing “women in business” seminars all the time. Either you’re part of the regular workforce or you’re a protected species. Which is it? That’s what employers look for.
— m00se · May 12, 06:00 PM · #
You really get stars in your eyes when you talk about Obama, don’t you?
Yup.
I think he might be my first actual experience of a live superrational human.
— matoko_chan · May 12, 06:18 PM · #
MooSE, not everyone is so free of all hang-ups and sense of privacy as you. Why do we care about are judges’ quirks, qualms, and squeamishness, unless we are not well-read enough to question or defend her jurisprudence.
Some judges -even criminal judges – don’t like the sight of blood. A great many (77%) that I know regularly sodomize goats and yet tell no one – not even strangers or their own children and parents – but some of them are fine jurists nonetheless.
Still, even though this is the most important urgent central question of our times and century as A.Sull. attests, it’s hard to know the extent of what you could lazily conclude about Kagan’s hang-ups and embarrassment – maybe it’s good that not all our judges feel so free to talk about what turns them on to others and are even capable of blushing and wearing clothes underneath their robes.
Maybe we need a few judges who understand the still pervasive human tendency to recognize certain codes of decorum and decency by habit. Too bad Kagan was raised by squares. But it’s not her fault she’s more like most people than shame-free spirits like you. She still might have good enough judgment for the job.
— Uncle Flo · May 12, 07:18 PM · #
So, Uncle Flo – you live in either Arkansas or San Francisco….
— m00se · May 12, 08:22 PM · #
I’ve never met a woman who can outthink me. Good thing, since I’m interested in anything lithe with tits.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · May 12, 11:16 PM · #
matoko_chan,
Yup.I think he might be my first actual experience of a live superrational human
I’d say you are wrong. You are experiencing the “power of Charisma” the effect of leadership on the susceptible human mind.
In fact, You are the inventive genius who keeps finding all sorts of fabulous 11-dimensional chess rationalizations for everything he does and you are attributing the patterns you invented to him post-facto.
Actually he rules by committee, speaks by teleprompter, and improvises. His actions are considerably less effective than you think.
As leader he often gets credit for other people’s achievments. For instance mobilizing congress to pass the Obamacare bill was much more Pelosi and her party machine than Obama.
There’s also a large measure of luck. Where other people are there to intercept and run with the ball he throws randomly. But he still gets the credit for the pass.
— Keid A · May 12, 11:36 PM · #
Moooooooooose!,
Why either? San Francisco, Arkansas is a lovely backwater, disproportionately populated by openly gay sportsmen/women.
— turnbuckle · May 13, 02:50 AM · #
Oh, and Uncle Flo, terrific comment.
— turnbuckle · May 13, 02:51 AM · #
Well, on second thought, Flo, your comment is actually an overreaction to moooooooooooooose!. Mostly, I was seduced by the “too bad Kagan was raised by squares” remark. Quite funny.
Sullivan’s campaign doesn’t seem that obnoxious to me. I think you can infer that, if Kagan is indeed gay, Sullivan would like somebody in the ostensibly neutral press to force her hand on the subject. Better that than the creeps who think homosexuality is a mental illness keep fluffing the accusation, without having brass enough to say, “I think what I think about who she sleeps with is wrong and relevant, somehow.”
On the other hand, I guess enough people— Sullivan and myself, included— who would be happy to see an openly gay Supreme Court justice are discussing the subject that it cannot really become the kind of insidious whisper-smear, originating solely among sleezy tacticians, that say, the misinformed gossip about McCain rearing an illegitimate brown child was in the 2000 primaries. This inappropriate line of inquiry is coming from all quarters. It’s out there in a wide way. No partisan interest really owns it. But again, why not defang those who have hangups about homosexuality by beating them to the punch with full acknowledgment. If she’s gay and her orientation rankles them, get them out of the closet with their qualms.
Of course, all of this assumes there’s something more than buzzing internet speculation afoot. She certainly wouldn’t want to call a press conference about her orientation, whatever it may be, unless the question was unbelievably broached by somebody during confirmation proceedings.
But to get back to Millman’s proposal: I don’t think that his suggestion that Sullivan would balk at the opportunity to ask Kagan the question to her face undermines Sullivan’s position in any way. After all, we routinely expect institutional bodies— whether the police, the army or the press corps— to assume tough obligations that any of us, personally, would abhor. It makes those institutions necessary, if dangerous.
— turnbuckle · May 13, 03:38 AM · #
Dunno, all this reminds me of that (in)famous 2005 incident when Scalia was asked by an NYU student (after his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas) whether he occasionally sodomized his wife.
Now imagine that such state laws (prohibiting sodomy, heterosexual or homosexual) were still on the books, and during the confirmation hearing one side demanded to know whether the nominee for the Supreme Court (say it was a he) sodomized his wife, so that they could infer what his position would be if a challenge to such state laws came before the Court.
(Or simply imagine if that happened, say, during any confirmation in recent decades before 2003.)
Is it really okay to ask anything we could construct as possibly pertinent to any matter regulated by law, just by arguing that, hey, it’s a public position and one is free to decline the nomination?
— Marko · May 13, 07:14 AM · #
Is it really okay to ask anything we could construct as possibly pertinent to any matter regulated by law, just by arguing that, hey, it’s a public position and one is free to decline the nomination?
— ed hardy t shirts · May 13, 08:31 AM · #
What is most interesting in Kagan is her carefully engineered academic persona. It makes me wonder (re Brooks) what is going on under the covers so to speak. In reaction to that, what its coming to is a death by feigned concern.
Following Sully’s lead, we say “sure, it shouldn’t matter what your orientation is. So, what is your orientation? Not that it matters, but it’d sure be nice if you were a full on bull dyke. You know – for diversity’s sake.”
This all is an amusing reflection of the left’s campaign to make Roberts look gay during his confirmation process, you know – when it was OK to speculate on these things in the press.
— m00se · May 13, 11:22 AM · #
Regarding the remark above about top professional women often being single or divorced… I think there’s something in it. Not just because men are intimidated by smart women, but also because of how women deal with what life throws their way. Smart women might be bored by less intelligent men, for example, and therefore be less likely to want to spend time with them.
Also, a woman who finds herself single for any reason not fully under her control (hubby leaves, love of life dies, or perhaps she’s lesbian by inclination but much too old-fashioned to do anything about it) may choose to throw herself into work in a more intense way. Men have been known to do this too. And that extra commitment to work can sometimes be what it takes to move someone from the upper middle ranks of a profession to the very top.
— M.C. · May 13, 02:28 PM · #
I wouldn’t take any of Sullivan’s claims at face value. He is a misogynist, who hates female authority figures. He is assaulting her, in the only way he can, viz., by using the platform of his blog. That her name probably has neoconservative connotations in his degraded little mind likely intensifies his feelings of loathing for her.
The one salient fact about the woman that was much discussed initially was her pro-gay rights stand vis a vis the military. On principle, a principle he belabors, he ought to be celebrating her nomination. But Andrew Sullivan is motivated principally by animosities, and nothing arouses those animosities quite like a powerful woman. All of his ex web-post facto justifications are fatuous.
Why does he still garner any respect?
— fw · May 14, 09:00 PM · #
I’m curious what basis you have for that characterization. He’s supported a large number of female authority figures in the past. It’s hard to argue that his distaste of Hilary Clinton is misogynistic; she’s fairly loathsome. Or Sarah Palin – she actually is a moron, and apparently congenitally unable to tell the truth about anything. (And her story about Trig’s birth actually is a physical impossibility.)
He’s accepted that Kagan is a straight woman; that’s ended his inquiry on his blog. (It’s not, of course, ended the attempt to gay-bait among conservatives.) Is your claim of misogyny predicated on any examples beyond Clinton and Palin, who actually are every bit as loathsome as Sullivan frequently claims?
— Chet · May 14, 09:57 PM · #
It’s worth noting that Andrew Sullivan is a huge Margaret Thatcher fan and supported the last female Obama nominee, Sonja Sotomayor. In other words, fw, you’re wrong.
— Conor Friedersdorf · May 14, 10:19 PM · #
Respetfully, Conor, I don’t think being a fan of Margaret Thatcher, which in a way is a holdover from his past, I would argue, or of Sonia Sotomayor disproves his outsize hostility to other women in positions of authority. The tendency to discriminate ALWAYS makes exceptions, sometimes wittingly, to discredit the accusation, at other times because the person in question doesn’t conform to the general stereotype to which the prejudiced person subscribes. You don’t have to look hard to find examples of this, so I won’t bore you by listing them.
Back to Margaret Thatcher; she’s an icon now, onto which he’s free to project whatever ideas he chooses. And the fact is that she either articulated or implicitly held views that completely at variance with those he currently purports to uphold, starting with her aggressive defense of what remained of the British empire. She simply doesn’t exude the kind of vitality that might pique his anger, at this point. It’s sentimentality, if he indeed still venerates her, and would not stand up to scrutiny. Although, in fairness, he drifts so freely and expediently over the range of political opinion, trimming his sails in whatever direction the prevailing winds blow, that it is hard to pin down exactly what he does stand for.
Say what you like, the venom he spews at the Palins is repulsive, and I simply have to ask you to take it on faith that politically, Palin is as far from my own beliefs as it’s possible to be. And likewise, the taunting of Kagan, who ostensibly fights for the rights that he continually promotes, is irrational.
I don’t accept your argument through a few counterexamples.
— fw · May 14, 10:43 PM · #
And on what basis should we be expected to accept yours?
— Chet · May 14, 11:37 PM · #
What Andrew says about Stepford Barbie is the truth.
She is a mean venal vindictive carny barker scamming the marks for cash and raising her children to be uneducated social parasites like her with no moral values.
She lies constantly and never gets called on it and is fluffed by teatards like Continetti.
And….she actually thinks she can elected president without ever holding an open presser?????
Classic dementia praecox, paranoid schizophrenia with delusions of granduer.
She is a disease.
And she is going to kill the GOP.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 02:40 AM · #
and fw…..Brooks said it first.
“a cancer”.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 02:44 AM · #
Sully’s viewpoint on women tends to the misogynistic, without being actually overt. His constant drumbeat about Hillary, Palin and childbearing (indeed, his near complete ignorance of its details) paints a fairly cliched picture of a gay man living in a hermetically sealed bubble obsessively taking picturs of his dogs on the dunes of “P-town”. If you havent seen them, seek out the pictures of his last videoed interview wherein he has clearly been subjected to waterboarding with “Just for Men”. He’s not going lightly into the dark, so to speak. Pun intended.
For all his laments about the insular nature of DC press flunkies, he’s as much a product of that dark gooey center as Krauthammer, Wills or Maddow – he’s just somewhat better at moral vogueing than they are.
And of course he’s empowered by being in the Atlantic bully pulpit.
— m00se · May 15, 03:33 AM · #
Right, I mean he’s really shaping the course of American media discourse from the pages of a magazine most people recognize only because it was mentioned on Mad Men that one time.
I was just thinking that – he colors the gray out of his beard, therefore he hates women and their evil childbearing vaginas. Palin’s most of all, with its amazing superpower to literally grip her newborn infant about the head and hold him that way during an hour’s remarks before a governors’ convention and a five-hour plane ride.
Why is he taken seriously? Because, despite what conservatives and squishy liberals would like to believe, he says seriously interesting things. And his detractors seem to be able to do nothing but make themselves look incredibly ridiculous.
— Chet · May 15, 07:29 AM · #
well….i think Trig is Palin’s biological child…..but IT IS FACT that she concealed her pregnancy for 7 months, lied and obfusticated details of her pregnancy, considered abortion (unless she is lying about that too), and still refuses to hold an open presser.
My hypothesis is that she was trying for a fundie abortion, ie, jesus-take-the-wheel, and scrutiny of the details surrounding Trigs birth will reveal that she took deliberate risk endangering her unborn child.
Now, idc….Palin could have had a legal abortion at the point she found out about the downs syndrome…..but I bet her base would care….a whole lot…if she was unable to answer questions in an open presser.
That is why she can never have one.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 01:31 PM · #
AND the idea that public lying is somehow protected because she was a pregnant woman is the epitome of sexism. Do we really live in democratic meritocracy where a “candidate” can be protected from the freedom of the press and be elected without ever holding an open presser?
“I want to make a toast to all at this press event who agree with Thomas Jefferson, who said that our liberty depends on the freedom of the press,” she said. “So I want to lift a glass to those who defend that freedom.”
Hopefully the press is the dragon in the moat that will protect us from this sly dimwitted demagogue who is using her low cunning to harvest a fortune before abandoning the GOP at the alter of party nominations.
Again, the GOP thought they could use her like a tasp on the base….she is using them….she can’t win and she knows it. Schmidt and company could have blown her out of the water after the election…..but they STILL thought they could use her. She is the realization of the republican disease, anything to win. And Douthat and Salam, and even my hero Dr. Manzi, indeed all the soi-disant intellects of the right, continue to want to use her and look the other way.
Thomas Jefferson would have spit on her and you know it.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 02:25 PM · #
AND the whole ghoulish mormon-dead-baptism of Thomas Jefferson by the right is just obscene.
Is your base really that stupid?
Jefferson was an elitist polymath public intellectual that would have recognized Obama as an avatar of his natural aristoi.
And have deplored Palin as the mortal disease of conservatism she represents.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 03:53 PM · #
its just…..the absolutely stunning hypocrisy of Palin tributing Jeffersonian “Freedom of the Press” when every question she gets ax is prescreened and she has never had an unscripted presser….. and Jefferson would have totally called her out for the lying demagogue she is.
Are you people really this stupid?
You deserve extinction.
— matoko_chan · May 15, 05:03 PM · #
Don’t worry about it, Matoko, Apophis is coming in 2029, and thanks to Obama
we won’t be able to prevent it. Obama who doesn’t think the First Amendment is fundamental, it would be charitable to compare him to Marat or Danton, not the low cunning of a Robespierre
— ian cormac · May 15, 05:56 PM · #
i think the wheels are coming off already, ian.
better hurry up and catch the wave, Reihan.
throw Palin under the bus while it can still count for something.
— matoko_chan · May 16, 12:22 AM · #