Yesterday I blogged about Andrew Sullivan's argument that we have a right to know whether Elena Kagan is gay. He argues that "In a free society in the 21st Century, it is not illegitimate to ask. And it is cowardly not to tell." In his argument Sullivan compares sexuality to religion. Whether Kagan is gay, he writes,
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.
Today in a piece for Slate, William Saletan looks back at the confirmation battle surrounding Robert Bork, where his religion became an important issue:
In July 1987, shortly after President Reagan nominated Bork, Time reported that Bork had been "raised a Protestant" but had "married a Jewish woman" and, though remarried to a Catholic, was "now an agnostic." Democratic activists in the South pounced on this report, charging that Bork had "doubts about God" or "doesn't believe in God."
What followed was an excruciating inquiry into Bork's beliefs and religious associations.
Saletan recounts the inquiry, describing it as,
easily one of the most disgusting episodes in the history of Supreme Court nominations. And it took place only 23 years ago. Yes, tolerance of sexual and religious differences has increased since then. But is it safe, even today, to seek confirmation to the court as an open agnostic or deist, much less as a homosexual?
That question alone is one worth pondering, but Saletan digs deeper and quotes another essayist ebfore inviting us to think about "one's ability to describe onself":
What happened to Bork is a warning to any of us who would press a nominee to divulge her faith or sexuality. It's a portrait of how grotesque our country can become in its determination to expose and pick at the personal lives of public figures. The political threat is that unconventional sexuality or religion can destroy the nominee. But the moral threat is far greater. In the act of forced disclosure, "one's ability to describe oneself, one's freedom to say who one is, is peremptorily taken away," a great essayist once wrote. At stake is the most fundamental of human rights: "the ability to choose who one is and how one is presented, to control the moment of self-disclosure and its content."
Andrew Sullivan wrote those words 19 years ago. They were eloquent and true then. They are no less so today.
Yesterday I wrote that I thought Sullivan made a "compelling argument" when he said that we have a right to know whether Elena Kagan is gay. Today I am persuaded by what Sullivan wrote 19 years ago.
Read William Saletan's piece for Slate here, and Andrew Sullivan's piece on outing from 1991 here.
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