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.