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Richard Just has a
knockout post over at the New Republic
adding another wrinkle to the discussions that have surrounded the
naming of a Supreme Court justice to replace the retiring David Souter. If the
president nominated an openly gay jurist, it’s easy to assume a confirmation
firestorm of Roe v. Wade proportions,
led by Bible-clutching protesters and the intolerant Senator Jeff Sessions on the Senate judiciary committee.
But Just wonders whether it’s not only not damaging, but in fact beneficial to have an openly gay court nominee. It would, he reasons, naturally
separate the wheat from the, um, haters:
[N]ominating
a lesbian to the court would put conservatives in a politically awkward
position. As the gay rights battle has come to center more and more on the
specific question of marriage, conservatives have frequently insisted that they
are not anti-gay, just opposed to gays getting married. Conservatives are
attached to this distinction because they know that, without it, they end up
looking like bigots. But if they decide to make an issue of a Supreme Court
nominee's sexual orientation, they would effectively be conceding that this
distinction was a lie. …
Given that
most Americans are no longer comfortable with transparent homophobia (while
conservatives still have the majority on same-sex marriage, liberals enjoy
majorities on various other gay-rights questions, such as workplace
discrimination), it would be a risky move for conservatives to toss aside their
cherished distinction between anti-gay sentiment and anti-gay-marriage
sentiment. So maybe they would think twice about raising sexual orientation
during a confirmation battle. And if they decided to do it anyway, it could
become one of those defining moments where the American political center gets a
glimpse at the fundamental ugliness undergirding a particular crusade--and
turns decisively in the other direction.
Ooh, snap. It’s
not too often that bigots get a real, live hoisting on their own petard—but
this court opening could be just such an opportunity. I really believe
that a public political fight around whether conservatives are anti-gay or anti-gay
marriage is one that the religious right would lose, definitively—and might do
more to advance the cause of gay rights than the rolling boil of states that are
legalizing such marriages. Maybe I've been watching too much of the NBA finals, but I would call this the political equivalent of a flying dunk in Tony Perkins' face. Who doesn't want to see that?
Of course, this all depends on Barack Obama, who has been
fairly cowardly about gay rights, both on the trail and in office. (And, judging
from those “leaders” like DC Councilman Marion Barry, who now claims spokesmanship
for blacks on gay issues, the leadership vacuum is hurting the cause of justice.) Sure, there is a risk of flameout with any nomination, but if Obama really wanted to leapfrog past the current unsatisfying, incremental approach to gay rights, this is a great idea.
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The NYT worried this weekend, in the Style section, about the graying of the cadre of abortion counselors who have done battle for access to the procedure since the 1970s. They're the women who worked out of fortress-like buildings, in out of the way places, where protesters made sure the job was never hassle-free—and sometimes physically risky. The article correctly pointed out that a new generation of counselors and doctors is filling these positions in big cities but not rural areas. That's especially true in swathes of the South and Midwest. The director of Planned Parenthood for South Dakota is also the director for Minnesota and one other state.
This map has for a while made me wonder: Are buses and planes the future of national access to abortion? Should the groups that support making the procedure available raise money to pay for women to travel to the cities where clinics aren't under seige, and counselors and doctors don't have to be pioneering true believers to work there? It's a strategy that wouldn't further the mission to fulfill Roe by making abortion available everywhere across the country. It would add to the travel burden some rural women seeking abortions already face. And so it's unlikely to appeal to the abortion-rights groups. Unless and until they really can't staff the outposts. At that point, maybe there will be a new rallying cry: The Roe Bus, coming to take you away.
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Eve, you're right that Kirsten Gillibrand has a remarkably conservative record for a New York Dem, except on one issue: reproductive rights. She co-sponsored a 2007 bill to "expand access to preventive health care services that help reduce unintended pregnancy, reduce abortions, and improve access to women's health care," and she also got a 100 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice New York. It's been argued by Ross Douhat and others that pro-lifers are more willing to compromise, especially now that Obama and his choice-loving compatriots are in charge, but the evidence of that is scant. In fact, it seems like the pro-life movement has been invigorated by Obama's inauguration, as tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists attended a rally in D.C. yesterday to mark the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. (According to the AP, one woman held up a sign that said “The Audacity of Hope: No More Roe.”)
Related: Wonder what the Catholic Gillibrand thinks of this ad making the rounds from CatholicVote.org, which argues that if Obama had been aborted, he wouldn't be president today.
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