So, Is Kagan Gay?
You’d think those nasty rapscallions on the right would be going hard after the lesbian angle, but, with the possible exception of Maggie Gallagher and her NOM henchmen, claiming, (quite frankly, stupidly,) “A Vote for Kagan Is a Vote for Gay Marriage,” theirs has been a whisper campaign. (And you can just flat-out call B.S. on Maggie for saying HRC agrees with her. They do not. But Maggie never links to items that would prove she’s twisting truth. It’s just easier that way.)
From the gays in the blogosphere, however, well, there’s an entirely different story.
Andrew Sullivan (whom we can hardly call being on the right anymore, thank goodness,) demands to know. In, “So Is She Gay?” he posits,
It is no more of an empirical question than whether she is Jewish. We know she is Jewish, and it is a fact simply and rightly put in the public square. If she were to hide her Jewishness, it would seem rightly odd, bizarre, anachronistic, even arguably self-critical or self-loathing. And yet we have been told by many that she is gay … and no one will ask directly if this is true and no one in the administration will tell us definitively.
Hmmm… On the one hand, this makes me ponder. Let’s continue.
In a word, this is preposterous – a function of liberal cowardice and conservative discomfort. It should mean nothing either way.
Darn right, it should mean nothing either way. And yet, how terribly presumptuous to assume that it does not. Kagan is 50. Sullivan is 46. Both come from a time when it was more “appropriate” to hide one’s homosexuality than to be open. Sullivan took one road, perhaps (I said, perhaps) Kagan took another.
Since the issue of this tiny minority – and the right of the huge majority to determine its rights and equality – is a live issue for the court in the next generation, and since it would be bizarre to argue that a Justice’s sexual orientation will not in some way affect his or her judgment of the issue, it is only logical that this question should be clarified.
Now hold on here.
This is the crux of the issue and the exact problem I have with all those on the right who were screaming when Judge Vaughn Walker’s homosexuality was “exposed.” (It was considered well-known before the Prop 8 trial.) The Maggie Gallagher brigade was clamoring that of course Walker would decide the federal Prop 8 trial, automatically, for “the gays.” As if Clarence Thomas would decide every case for “the blacks.” And as if one element of one’s identity is always the deciding factor in all they do. Why, look at right-wing zealot Michelle Malkin, whose entire existence seems poised to rebel against everything she is.
Ridiculous.
Sullivan continues:
It’s especially true with respect to Obama. He has, after all, told us that one of his criteria for a Supreme Court Justice is knowing what it feels like to be on the wrong side of legal discrimination. Well: does he view Kagan’s possible life-experience as a gay woman relevant to this? Did Obama even ask about it? Are we ever going to know one way or the other? Does she have a spouse? Is this spouse going to be forced into the background in a way no heterosexual spouse ever would be?
GayPatriot stoops so low as to ask, if Kagan is gay, “is she actually filling the homosexual Supreme Court seat left vacant since last year?”
Oh come on, you never heard of the David Souter gay talk? Where have you been? In the same crowd of women that pine for Anderson Cooper…. or the Village People? Sheesh.
Nice…
But he does ask, “why does Obama think that being a lesbian is such a bad thing?” A valid question, given the White House’s deplorable jump to uphold Kagan’s “straightness.”
Gay activist, writer, and Sirius radio host Michelangelo Signorile weighed in last night. We had, via Twitter, a robust conversation, prompted by his tweet:
The story has now become highly relevant: Kagan now needs to say if she is a lesbian or not. And the press must ask her point blank.
And later,
Was it “our business” if Souter was gay? If Scalia or Thomas is? Why is it “our business” that they’re straight? Or Catholic?
Hmmm… again. Good points.
And, lastly,
Why do let right dictate terms: They say it’s bad to be gay, so we so okay, keep it a secret, don’t dare ask. Very weak.
Signorile and Sullivan are taking this issue on to highlight the “tyranny of the closet,” and rightly so. But at what point do we cross the line in using an individual’s privacy to further our own causes? I’m certainly not saying they are, I’m just asking.
In, “Elena Kagan Is Not Gay,” The Nation’s Richard Kim, looking back on a Sullivan-Signorile event a decade ago, calls this “the high-tech lynching of an uppity ambiguous Harvard dean.” Kim then calls Sullivan’s reasoning “naive,” and wonders if Sullivan is, “exorcising some old demons.”
Earlier in the day, Sullivan wrote:
The NYT’s bizarre profile of Kagan, which plumbs every minute aspect of her most intimate and private life while saying nothing whatever about her emotional relationships, home, dating, or indeed anything that might even touch upon her sexual orientation, gay or straight, is so contrived in its avoidance of the obvious it is almost comic. To put it bluntly: the NYT can produce 4,500 words on a person and barely address the three most common Google searches on her name. There is some kind of disconnect here, no?
So I stick to my guns. If Obama had not publicly declared someone’s life experiences to be essential to his pick of a Supreme Court Justice, it would be one thing.
If Kagan is gay, or not, it’s between her and whomever she chooses, unless she is but denies it to the public. In other words, unless she flat out lies. Personally, I would rather have an “out” judge than a closeted one. A closeted judge in this day and age is not a tribute to our community. It’s one thing to point to someone from the 1940s and say, “And did you know they were gay?” It’s another to point to someone prominent in today’s society who is, but isn’t out.
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'DISTURBING SURGE IN VIOLENT THREATS'
Biden Launches Major Initiative to Protect LGBTQ Community Ahead of Massive White House Pride Celebration
The Biden administration is launching a three-pronged plan to protect members of the LGBTQI+ community, including protecting their safety and civil rights, supporting LGBTQI+ children, and protecting students from book bans.
“Over a dozen states have enacted anti-LGBTQI+ laws that violate our most basic values and freedoms as Americans, and are cruel and callous to our kids, our neighbors, and those in our community,” the White House said in a statement Thursday. “The Biden-Harris administration stands with the LGBTQI+ community and has their backs in the face of these attacks.”
The initiative will be announced during President Joe Biden’s Thursday evening Pride event, which Reuters reports will be “the largest White House Pride Month celebration in history.” In a “a deliberate contrast to a cascade of Republican legislation and other attacks targeting LGBTQ+ people,” President Biden will host “thousands” on the White House South Lawn.
“This year we’re seeing a disturbing surge in violent threats against LGBTQ community organizations,” Biden White House domestic policy advisor Neera Tanden told reporters. “In too many parts of our country, LGBTQ Americans are being targeted for who they are, and that, simply put, is discrimination.”
President Biden has directed three federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to “launch the LGBTQI+ Community Safety Partnership. The Partnership will work hand-in-hand with LGBTQI+ community organizations to provide critical safety resources to ensure these organizations can remain safe spaces for the community,” the White House says. “In acknowledgement of the mistreatment that LGBTQI+ communities have often faced in interactions with law enforcement, the Partnership will also work to build trust between LGBTQI+ organizations and federal law enforcement agencies.”
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Kristen Clarke, will chair regular meetings with the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s LGBTQI+ Working Group, focused on “issues related to discrimination against the LGBTQI+ community.”
The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services on Thursday will “issue a Behavioral Health Care Advisory on Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth to provide evidence-based practices for mental health providers. HHS will also issue a guidance to states and communities on using federal funding to support mental health services for LGBTQI+ youth.”
The administration points to the disproportionately large number of LGBTQI+ youth in the child welfare system, and notes that “far too often” they “experience trauma, including being exposed to so-called ‘conversion therapy,'” which Biden has spoken out against before. HHS says it “will issue a Behavioral Health Care Advisory on Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth to provide evidence-based practices for mental health providers. HHS will also issue a guidance to states and communities on using federal funding to support mental health services for LGBTQI+ youth.”
The White House also says it is working to “Shield LGBTQI+ kids and families from discrimination,” and “Address LGBTQI+ youth homelessness.” It also points to its efforts on “Protecting Americans from book banning,” and “Uplifting LGBTQI+ communities.”
In December, President Biden signed a law protecting same-sex and interracial marriages.
You can watch the video above or at this link, and read the entire White House announcement on its website.
A right-wing GOP lawmaker who has backed Donald Trump through both of his impeachments is sounding the alarm that the former president is becoming increasingly erratic which could put the 2024 general election at risk for his party.
According to a report from Politico, the closer Donald Trump gets to becoming the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee the more some GOP lawmakers are growing worried that not only will they lose their shot at taking back the White House, but he’ll take down-ticket GOP candidates down with him.
The report also notes that the battle between Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis is starting to turn off conservative voters and some are hoping that an alternative will rise from the squabble.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) was blunt about the GOP’s prospects as they stand today, telling reporters, “I’m worried about it,” and expressed fears that Trump will keep independent voters at a distance.
READ MORE: Trump lobs wild bribery claim against DOJ lawyer in all-caps midnight Truth Social rant
With a wide array of candidates having just appeared over the past weekend in Iowa, Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) claimed the infighting is turning voters — even Republicans — off.
“We’ll see if the two titans punching each other fires up the base, or if six months from now people are tired of both and ready for a third way,” Nunn explained before making tha blunt observation, “When you talk to Iowans, s–t-talking other candidates will not get you success. We don’t necessarily pick the winner, but we’re pretty good at smelling bulls–t.”
Kentucky Rep. Tom Massie (R), who has sided with DeSantis, is very worried about the possibility of Trump at the top of the ticket.
“I wish Trump were on Twitter. He’s in an echo chamber right now. And people don’t know how far he’s spun out from where he was,” he said in an interview. “The more visibility that we can help Trump get — when he attacks [his former White House press secretary] Kayleigh McEnany, for instance — the better.”
You can read more here.
Image via Shutterstock
RIGHT WING EXTREMISM
Trump Has Been Notified He Is Target of DOJ Investigation – Insists ‘It’s Not True’ He’s Getting Indicted: Reports
Attorneys for Donald Trump reportedly have been notified the ex-president is a target of a criminal investigation into his handling of classified documents. The ex-president denies he is being indicted.
The Guardian Wednesday evening reported federal prosecutors told Trump’s attorneys last week he is a target of the long investigation that is now led by Special Counsel Jack Smith. That investigation, experts believe, could lead to obstruction of justice and Espionage Act charges.
“Trump’s lawyers were notified before they met on Monday with the special counsel Jack Smith leading the Mar-a-Lago documents case and the senior career official in the deputy attorney general’s office and made the case that prosecutors should not indict the former president in the matter,” The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports.
Politico also confirms The Guardian’s reporting, stating: “Federal prosecutors have notified former President Donald Trump in a letter that he is the target of a criminal investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter.”
Earlier Wednesday, a conservative website reported federal prosecutors had informed Trump’s attorneys he is a target and likely to be indicted. That website is run by John Solomon, who Trump named as his official representative to the National Archives last year. That move reportedly gave Solomon access to non-public administration records related to Russia, Politico reported.
Later Wednesday, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported via Twitter she had been in touch with Trump.
“Trump tells me minutes ago he has NOT been told he’s getting indicted, when contacted. ‘It’s not true,’ he said, adding again he hasn’t done anything wrong,” Haberman tweeted at 2:40 PM.
“When I asked if he had been told he’s a target, he demurred, saying he doesn’t talk directly to prosecutors,” she added.
Haberman says she used the Solomon report as the basis for her conversation with Trump.
Less than one hour after Haberman says she spoke with the ex-president, he again posted an angry rant on his Truth Social platform.
“No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong, but I have assumed for years that I am a Target of the WEAPONIZED DOJ & FBI, starting with the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, the “No Collusion” Mueller Report, Impeachment HOAX #1, Impeachment HOAX #2, the PERFECT Ukraine phone call, and various other SCAMS & WITCH HUNTS,” he rambled.
Trump made clear he expects House Republicans to protect him: “REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS MUST MAKE THIS THEIR # 1 ISSUE!!!”
Pence Presidential Launch Mocked for Suggesting Drag Queens Are Assaulting ‘American Values’ – With No Mention of Trump
Mark Meadows Reportedly Agrees to Plea Deal – Attorney Denies
Fox News Anchor’s Bad Week: Slammed for ‘Complete Lie,’ Accused of Making Up Story During Primetime Guest Hosting Gig
Trump Has Been Notified He Is Target of DOJ Investigation – Insists ‘It’s Not True’ He’s Getting Indicted: Reports
House Freedom Caucus Republican: Trump Is Spinning Out of Control
Biden Launches Major Initiative to Protect LGBTQ Community Ahead of Massive White House Pride Celebration
House Freedom Caucus Republican: Trump Is Spinning Out of Control
Trump Has Been Notified He Is Target of DOJ Investigation – Insists ‘It’s Not True’ He’s Getting Indicted: Reports
Mark Meadows Reportedly Agrees to Plea Deal – Attorney Denies
Fox News Anchor’s Bad Week: Slammed for ‘Complete Lie,’ Accused of Making Up Story During Primetime Guest Hosting Gig
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