Must be the haircut

Is it OK to be single? Yes, Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court, is single.

But a large segment of the chattering classes adds “single” to “has supported equality for gays” and arrives at “lesbian.” Go figure.

To the American Family Association, that means she’s not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice. On its website, blogger Bryan Fischer says that “Social conservatives must rise up as one and say no lesbian is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.”

The Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, an anti-gay group fronted by Peter LaBarbera, suggests asking her this McCarthy-esque question: “Are (or were) you a practicing homosexual?” LaBarbera himself says that gays’ “privacy interests simply do not outweigh the public’s right to know about potential conflicts-of-interest in the lives of their judges and lawmakers.”

You could say the same thing about religious people. After all, their beliefs and lifestyle would influence their judgment and legislation, and frankly, I don’t trust some conservative religious people, with their long list of thou shalt nots and “abominations” to treat me fairly and equitably under the law.

Yet Catholic judges decide divorce cases all the time. It’s their job. Muslim and Jewish grocery-store clerks sell ham. They do their job. There are Baptists selling lottery tickets at convenience stores and people like me, who object to sex ads, working at SN&R.

To say that someone is unqualified for a job simply because of sexual orientation is offensive, and precisely the sort of discrimination that the right says GLBT people don’t need to be protected from when they oppose bills like ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act). If straight, white, Christian men can put aside their identity and biases to do a good job, then it stands to reason that the same is certainly true of gay men and lesbians.

It’s also worth noting that the topic of “singleness” didn’t come up for Justice Sonia Sotomayor—mostly because the right focused on her race. Yeah, she’s single. But for some reason Elena Kagan must look more single than Sotomayor.

It’s probably her haircut.

Compiled from Kel’s Hot Flash.