An Unnatural Woman
The secret life of a Supreme Court short-lister
By Dahlia Lithwick and Hanna Rosin
Posted Tuesday, May 5, 2009, Slate.com
Over time, America grew used to thinking of Justice David Souter as an only child turned unmarried man who liked history books and hiking alone in the mountains. People stopped speculating about his singleton status, and he was left alone as America's last respectable bachelor. Now the talk of his successor has opened a whole new round of status speculation. The list of potential replacements is overpopulated by women who are single, childless, or divorced. So America asks—or worries without overtly asking—what is this suspicious creature called the bachelorette, and what is she really up to?
The speculation is partly fueled by the president. Obama has said he wanted a justice with "heart and empathy" who will think about "how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives." This meant he would look beyond the candidates' résumés and into the detailed personal backgrounds of their lives and choices. But it also meant the rest of us would be invited to do that, too.
This morning, Josh Gerstein of Politico reported that two of the top candidates for the SCOTUS seat, Stanford Law School's Pamela Karlan and Kathleen Sullivan, are gay. (Disclosure: Sullivan was a teacher of Dahlia's at Stanford, and Karlan is an acquaintance.) Karlan confirmed this report in an e-mail to Gerstein, writing, "It's no secret at all that I'm counted among the LGBT crowd." (Actually, if it wasn't a secret, it was at least a fact the mainstream media had thus far declined to report.) Sullivan declined to respond to an e-mail from Gerstein seeking comment for the Politico article.
(More here.)
By Dahlia Lithwick and Hanna Rosin
Posted Tuesday, May 5, 2009, Slate.com
Over time, America grew used to thinking of Justice David Souter as an only child turned unmarried man who liked history books and hiking alone in the mountains. People stopped speculating about his singleton status, and he was left alone as America's last respectable bachelor. Now the talk of his successor has opened a whole new round of status speculation. The list of potential replacements is overpopulated by women who are single, childless, or divorced. So America asks—or worries without overtly asking—what is this suspicious creature called the bachelorette, and what is she really up to?
The speculation is partly fueled by the president. Obama has said he wanted a justice with "heart and empathy" who will think about "how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives." This meant he would look beyond the candidates' résumés and into the detailed personal backgrounds of their lives and choices. But it also meant the rest of us would be invited to do that, too.
This morning, Josh Gerstein of Politico reported that two of the top candidates for the SCOTUS seat, Stanford Law School's Pamela Karlan and Kathleen Sullivan, are gay. (Disclosure: Sullivan was a teacher of Dahlia's at Stanford, and Karlan is an acquaintance.) Karlan confirmed this report in an e-mail to Gerstein, writing, "It's no secret at all that I'm counted among the LGBT crowd." (Actually, if it wasn't a secret, it was at least a fact the mainstream media had thus far declined to report.) Sullivan declined to respond to an e-mail from Gerstein seeking comment for the Politico article.
(More here.)
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