Right-wing perspective on The Orientation Issue

John Hinderaker, on the Power Line blog, has weighed in on the question of the sexual orientation of Elena Kagan, a potential Supreme Court nominee.

In this post, I criticized White House reaction to a report, which President Obama's staff calls erroneous, that Kagan is a lesbian. Then, I commented on a left-wing critique of Obama's general approach to LGBT issues.

My first comment on Hinderaker's post pertains to his statement that he "couldn't possibly care less about Kagan's romantic life". As I see it, there are two types of information about one's "romantic life". The first has to do with specific activities one may engage in with a partner. As long as those activities are private and involve consenting adults, I agree that they are no one else's business. The second datum is the nature of one's sexual orientation. Being open about that might involve letting people know the identity of one's partner. Alternatively, if one is single, it's a matter of being open about whether one seeks a relationship with a man or with a woman.

Openness about such things has always been taken for granted in the heterosexual world. Hinderaker himself recently provided an example of that with his post about the first regular-season baseball game played at Target Field in Minneapolis.

He included a picture of his wife, and he identified her as such. By doing that, he is, among other things, saying "I am heterosexual". (A spouse in a heterosexual marriage might have at least some degree of same-sex attraction, but the fact of the marriage indicates that he or she is living in a heterosexual manner.) He could instead have written that this was the woman sitting next to him, without identifying his relationship to her. But that would be ridiculous; why would he do that? It would be equally ridiculous to treat a person's homosexual identity as something that should be kept secret, or something that should be considered irrelevant by others.

Hinderaker's "couldn't care less" (at least he didn't commit the cardinal sin of writing "I could care less"!) is more tolerant than some statements that have been made about a lesbian or gay orientation. But there's still a undertone of inequality there. If someone mentioned Justice Ruth Ginsburg's husband, I seriously doubt that Hinderaker would say he couldn't care less that Ginsburg is heterosexual. But that's his instinctive reaction if someone says (perhaps incorrectly) that a potential Supreme Court nominee is a lesbian. The message (the same one the White House has been giving in reaction to the discussion of Kagan's sexuality) is that the latter is something to be tolerated, but is a defect in such a person.

Now to the substance of Hinderaker's argument against identity politics. I disagree with his characterization of identity politics as a creation of the modern left. For the first 127 years of the federal Supreme Court's existence, all of its justices were white male Christians (only three of whom were Roman Catholic). For the first 178 years, they were all white males. For the first 192 years, they were all male. Just coincidence? I would suggest that that was identity politics, played out in a different way.

Identity politics can go too far. I don't agree with the notion that, after the courts ended gerrymandering of congressional districts in the 1960s, the practice should later have been revived for the purpose of maximizing the number of districts with African American majorities. Similarly, I disagree with those who would impose quotas of any sort on the selection of public officials.

But that doesn't mean it's illegitimate for African Americans to be cognizant of how many among their number have achieved public office, including the presidency. And, while I don't advocate a 50% quota for women, one can take note of such facts as the 17% of U.S. senators or the 22% of Supreme Court justices who are female.

It's a bit different for us who are LGBT. For us, it's all about the openness. It seems quite likely that we had a president 153 years ago. But we were past our bicentennial before anyone was openly gay in Congress. Progress will continue to be held back until those on both the left and right of the spectrum stop treating public figures' LGBT orientation as a dirty secret that should be concealed.

Another Take on Obama and LGBT Issues

No sooner had I posted this critique of the Obama Administration's attitude about LGBT issues, than I saw this article on The Daily Beast by Timothy Patrick McCarthy, entitled "Obama's Cautious Gay Strategy."

McCarthy notes the glacial pace of actions to maybe, potentially, one day, end Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the total lack of action by Obama, an opponent of same-sex marriage, to provide any recognition of same-sex relationships.

Regarding Obama's directive to HHS to make rules providing access by same-sex partners to each other's hospital rooms, I agree with Andrew Sullivan's view that, while I can't say Obama's decision is a bad thing, per se, it glaringly points up the president's opposition to marriage equality. If we had that, no such special rules would be necessary.

McCarthy compares Obama to Bill Clinton, who, as McCarthy notes, signed the Defense of Marriage Act. But, of course, McCarthy blames Republicans for that. What? Did they grab hold of Clinton's left hand and force him to sign it?

People ask me how, as a gay man, I can be a Republican. While it's true that today's national Republican leadership is generally opposed to the LGBT agenda (yes, we have an agenda and, if that sounds sinister, so be it), the Democrats, despite somewhat friendlier rhetoric, have not done very much for us.

Clinton could have vetoed the Defense of Marriage Act, but instead chose to sign it. Whom should we who are opposed to that legislation blame for that? Bill Clinton. A Democrat, last time I checked.

A few Republican governors signed statewide gay rights laws during the 1980s and '90s. Is that strain of Republicanism dead by now? I hope not.

Do they think there's anything wrong with that?

Solicitor General Elena Kagan is widely reported to be the front-runner to be nominated by President Obama to the Supreme Court vacancy I described here.

Last week, a blogger writing on the CBS News website called Kagan a lesbian. White House spokespeople called that a "lie" and a "false charge". CBS removed the statement, for which it admitted to having insufficient "evidence".

They make it sound as though Kagan had been accused of murder! Accepting for the sake of argument that CBS's statement was inaccurate, it would have been better for Obama's staff to describe it as such.

If she is straight, the inaccurate statement is, as I see it, no worse than saying that she had been dean of Yale's law school, rather than (as is actually the case) Harvard's.

Be the change you want to see in the world, Mr. Obama. If you are truly committed to LGBT rights, rather than merely interested in courting the support of those of us who are LGBT, stop talking (either directly or through spokespeople) in the language of the homophobes.

Optimism

New York Times columnist David Brooks is playing contrarian, and expressing a high degree of optimism about America's future. To a great extent, I agree with his point of view. But not completely.

Brooks alludes to "a fiscal crisis" but doesn't discuss it in any detail. As I see it, if the U.S. is going to have any sort of bright future, we will first need to deal with the issue of Social Security and Medicare solvency. The choices are either some combination of benefit cuts and/or tax increases, or default on the unfunded obligations.

Immigration and its demographic effects, as described by Brooks, will ameliorate the solvency problem to some degree. But I don't think it will come anywhere near restoring the balance between workers and retirees that allowed Social Security to appear to work over its first few decades.

I see no basis for optimism about this country's future if that issue is not adequately addressed. Ideally, we should wean future generations off of the Social Security and Medicare Ponzi schemes as soon as possible.

I also take issue with the concept of national competitiveness, which underlies much of Brooks's argument. He notes that, on average, American workers are 10 times as productive as their Chinese counterparts. Is that a good thing? Brooks seems to take it for granted that the answer is "yes". But I disagree.

The more productive that Chinese workers become, the better off Americans are, on the whole. Of course, if Chinese workers get more efficient in making widgets, they might put American widget makers out of business. But an American is as likely to be a customer to the Chinese manufacturer as a competitor. A customer will benefit from greater efficiency on the part of a manufacturer, because that will decrease prices.

The U.S. gets some benefits from having the world's largest economy. It's the main factor making us the predominant military power in the world. We haven't always used that power wisely, and it's a bit of a mixed blessing when we're called upon to be the world's policeman, but, on balance, I'd rather be in our position than not. Also, we can borrow dollars from international creditors, and therefore we're shielded from the foreign exchange risk that can bedevil other debtor countries.

But we're nowhere near losing either of those advantages, regardless of how much China's economy grows in future years. So we have every reason to celebrate improvements in other countries' productivity, which will create better markets for our exports, and hold down the prices of our imports.

My view is that the concept of national competitiveness is based on the fallacy of composition. An individual business benefits from being more efficient than its competitors. But that doesn't mean that a country benefits from inefficiencies in other countries.