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The Gazette Opinion StaffOpinion Page Editor, The Gazette |
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Tests loom for openly gay federal judge
The July 25 editorial “Homers: What’s going right: Judicial First” explained that: “J. Paul Oetken, a graduate of Cedar Rapids Regis High School and the University of Iowa, was confirmed to a federal judgeship by the U.S. Senate. His achievement drew extra recognition because he is the first openly gay man to be confirmed to the federal bench.”
The real tests, however, loom.
Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, including ranking member Chuck Grassley, will not say why they are blocking a hearing for Ed DuMont, whose April 2010 nomination was the first of an openly gay person to a U.S. appeals court. Meanwhile, a judicial vacancy crisis has been deepened by unexplained GOP refusals to allow floor votes on 25 nominees, nearly all of whom were unopposed in committee.
Glenn Sugameli
Staff Attorney
Judging the
Environment,
Defenders of
Wildlife
Washington D.C.
It’s very sad to accept that misguided political ambition is standing in the way of sound governance. Republicans are so intimidated by the tea party that they cannot do what is best for the country.
Rich, this has nothing to do with the TEA Party. This has been the practice of the Republicans for decades. If what the letter writter says is true it is a sad day in America when a judge gets blocked for being gay.
It’s unlikely that DuMont is being blocked for being gay; like the other two dozen judicial nominees, his confirmation is being held up because it’s GOP policy to do so. This is in direct retaliation for the Dems doing the same thing to the Bush-era nominees, which was itself payback for the GOP’s mass blocking of Clinton’s nominees.
And so it goes.
This letter is a little like someone complaining that there could be butterflies in Antarctica if only it weren’t so darn cold there all the time. Beyond that, I am still struggling with the idea that knowledge of a public servant’s sexual preference is any business of the general public, or relevant to that judge’s ability to do his appointed job.
It’s not and it shouldn’t be John. Sadly though, some choose to make it their business. Shame on them.
Both parties need to recognize the necessity of an efficient federal court system, and stop playing these juvenile games of payback.
As for John above, it is naive to assert that we are now at a place where qualifications are the only matter to consider. While that is the goal we must eventually reach, it is necessary to point out that Oetken’s status as a gay man is important precisely because that status would have kept him off the bench, regardless of his talents or intellect, in the past.
John, must I remind you that there are still political leaders out there, like Rick Santorum and an Iowan whose name I refuse to use, whose political careers are built on stoking homophobic bigotry? We have to trumpet Oetken’s sexuality as a means to combat anti-gay prejudice, and to show the world how wrong such prejudice is.
I am unconvinced. The pols who are trying to exploit prejudice/bigotry (most of them GOP’ers, although GOP governor Chris Christie surprisingly issued a lovely smackdown to them yesterday) are just bottom feeders trying to suck up votes from yesterdays’ generation… they are the face of the Past. In order to move on and grow as a society, what passes for the Norm today needs to be seen as unremarkable.