Group Wants Elena Kagan to "Come Out" as Ex-Gay

There are a lot of things to scrutinize about any potential Supreme Court nominee: their view of Roe v. Wade, their judicial record, their understanding of the Constitution, and their stance on protection of privacy, among other things. Of course, it is also absolutely vital to determine who the nominee may have slept with in college ... right?

You might be inclined to disagree with that last one, but much of the talk surrounding Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan centers around her sexual orientation. Usually the debate is between gay vs. straight, but, as Amanda Hess over at The Sexist has learned,  the organization Parents and Friends of Exgays and Gays (PFOX) has thrown a new idea into the mix: Kagan, according to them, is likely ex-gay.

Greg Quinlan, president of PFOX, makes quite the, ahem, interesting argument to support his theory. First, he explains why he knows Kagan isn't a practicing lesbian. This is because President Obama supports the LGTB community, so Kagan would have no reason to not be out in the open if she were a lesbian. Apparently Quinlan doesn't consider the potential backlash from conservatives nationwide to be a real reason. Nor does he consider simple privacy to be one, either. Obama likes gays, so all gays in his administration must be out, easy-peasy.

So now that we have that hard evidence in support of her non-lesbianism, Quinlan turns to proving that Kagan is not not gay either. Following me? His logic gets even kookier here, but I'll do my best to explain. Apparently, Kagan was "known" in certain Harvard circles to be a lesbian. Unnamed friends of hers say she is reluctant to publicly deny the rumors because that might make her seem anti-gay. Quinlan, for some reason, finds this highly suspicious, saying, "this makes no sense either — isn’t the whole point of the gay rights movement to allow people to be free to declare who they really are, without stigma?" Then, apropos of nothing, he directly follows that statement with this: "If the only way for a middle-aged woman to declare that she is straight is to marry a man, wouldn’t that be a step backward, and not forward, in liberal gender politics?"

In Quinlan's world, he has just proven that Kagan is not not a lesbian. That finally brings us to his epiphany: Kagan is an ex-gay! It makes perfect sense! She can't come out of the closet because she's not gay, but she can't say she's not gay because she used to be gay. Of course. Quinlan sympathizes. He understands that, while gays and lesbians get to live happy, free, persecution-less lives, ex-gays face taunts and threats and constant discrimination. He urges Kagan to be brave and "to come out of the closet" about her ex-gayness (by the way, I am now really confused about who exactly is in the closet in Quinlan's world. Is it both gay and ex-gays? Just ex-gays?).

Can we all agree this is a bunch of crazy talk? Quinlan's arguments make no sense. Just because someone isn't a Chatty Cathy about their choice of sexual partner does not mean they are hiding some deep dark secret. This is a classic example of drawing a conclusion first and then later cherry-picking so-called "evidence" to support it. It boggles my mind that Quinlan is president of an entire organization of people who share his views. Perhaps some good will come of it, though: Maybe now everyone can see how silly it is to be obsessing over Kagan's sexual orientation and instead focus on her qualifications for the job at hand.

Photo credit: Harvard Law Record