MAYBE IT DOES MATTER A BIT

Andrew Sullivan thinks "it is not illegitimate to ask" whether Elena Kagan is gay and "it is cowardly not to tell."

Ron Beasley of Newshoggers says, "Who cares?" Digby says:

This is not a door anyone should want to open. If we are going to ask presidential nominees how they will apply their sex lives to cases, it's not going to be pretty. In fact, it's downright alarming.

... The woman has a right to be a single, middle aged career woman without being forced to answer questions she doesn't want to answer about her intimate life. If she's not out there crusading against gay rights, there absolutely no reason to assume anything or even bring it up.

I assume she's not going to address this question -- or at least she's not going to acknowledge being gay, even if asked -- and in that case I hope she's telling the truth.

We're thinking she could be on the Court for thirty, thirty-five, even forty years if she's approved by the Senate. If so, and if she's gay and closeted, is she going to remain that way for decades to come -- decades in which homophobic old farts my age and older are going to die off or cede control of the culture to younger people, for whom the notion of homosexuality as a stigma will be absurd? If she's in the closet, will she be a relic in her old age -- essentially the last closet case?

And meanwhile, in the near future, if she's in the closet, won't she be a target for a right-wing gotcha campaign at least as long as the president who appointed her is in office? When rumors began to circulate, Obama administration spokespeople told the press, in no uncertain terms, that those rumors were lies. Aren't Obama-haters going to be on a mission now to prove that the administration wasn't telling the truth?

This just seems like an absurd time to nominate someone who might be opaque about her personal life in this way. It seems like a bad way to start a Court career that would extend into a culturally changed future, and it seems like a risk for the present.