An Ally on the Bench!

I don’t know about you, but I am pretty darn psyched about President Obama’s first Supreme Court appointment.  I’m psyched about the very probable chance of a woman being appointed, and I am psyched about having some real concrete evidence of Mr. President’s priorities and values now that he is in office and holds such power. I admittedly don’t know a lot about the ladies on his short list, but I do know that at least two of them (Pamela Karlan and Kathleen Sullivan, both of Stanford Law School) are dykes, several others are notable LGBT allies and many others are speculated to be queer (although this is mostly because any single woman without children over a certain age is considered suspect in our culture).

Out lesbian Kathleen Sullivan, for example,  worked on the famous 1986 sodomy case, Bowers v. Hardwick, arguing on behalf of Hardwick, a man arrested for consensual sex with another man.  While the gays lost that case, it was later overturned in Lawrence v. Texas.  Sullivan has also written amicus briefs in support of marriage equality.  Another possibility, Elena Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School has worked extensively to create legislation that would prohibit the government from withholding federal funds from universities when the universities decide to ban military recruiters from campus because the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy conflicts with the school’s own nondiscrimination policies.

How cool would it be to have an open LGBT ally on the fucking Supreme Court?!  Do I smell federal antidiscrimination legislation? A federal marriage amendment in favor of us?!