Andrew Sullivan, that Kagan woman, and think of the fishbowl as a Vegas experience ...

Amongst the many existential questions to arise in a lifetime, the key one put by Andrew Sullivan about Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court is seminal:

So Is She Gay? he asks

It is no more of an empirical question than whether she is Jewish. We know she is Jewish, and it is a fact simply and rightly put in the public square. If she were to hide her Jewishness, it would seem rightly odd, bizarre, anachronistic, even arguably self-critical or self-loathing. And yet we have been told by many that she is gay ... and no one will ask directly if this is true and no one in the administration will tell us definitively.

It's a fair point.

I immediately wondered if Andrew Sullivan was in to bondage? Or was he just a straight heterosexual? Or did he masturbate with other children while on outings with the Scouts? So far I haven't been able to ask anyone directly if any of this is true, and it seems that no one in the administration will tell us definitively.

For all I know he might be an outed bear with a loving partner and a dose of HIV.

I'm a little worried about asking Andrew Sullivan directly, since he might simply tell me to get fucked, it's none of my business.

But is that a correct stance? I wouldn't want to be accused of cowardice or discomfort.

In a word, this is preposterous - a function of liberal cowardice and conservative discomfort. It should mean nothing either way. Since the issue of this tiny minority - and the right of the huge majority to determine its rights and equality - is a live issue for the court in the next generation, and since it would be bizarre to argue that a Justice's sexual orientation will not in some way affect his or her judgment of the issue, it is only logical that this question should be clarified.

Indeed, in much the same way as Andrew Sullivan himself might be compelled as a scribbler to pass judgment on some kind of sexuality - perhaps a tiny minority, but a live issue to the court or his readers - in which his sexual orientation, habits and practices have a crucial, key relevance, especially if he should happen, in his scribbles, to pass judgment on the issue ...

Indeed his sexuality might be held against him, and used to upend and overturn logical, well argued positions ...

It's only logical all these questions should be clarified. And there are so many more questions about his sexuality that need answering. Of course I only ask them as questions, without any insinuations or inferences. Who knows what he thinks about the rogering of gerbils? Does he agree with Miranda the Devine that the practice must cease instantly and forthwith?

After all, we know it's important to discuss the controversy in a quest for the truth, just as creationists do it all the time, as they earnestly debate the scientific evidence that people once rode dinosaurs in the way they do in Avatar:

It's especially true with respect to Obama. He has, after all, told us that one of his criteria for a Supreme Court Justice is knowing what it feels like to be on the wrong side of legal discrimination. Well: does he view Kagan's possible life-experience as a gay woman relevant to this? Did Obama even ask about it? Are we ever going to know one way or the other? Does she have a spouse? Is this spouse going to be forced into the background in a way no heterosexual spouse ever would be?

Oh indeed. Is there any chance for her to come out, like some modern day Ellen and take her place in the pantheon of the liberated? Or will she stay in a closet like Rock Hudson?

We simply can't let single women rest on their laurels. They need to provide answers. Does she have a vibrator in her bed side drawer for a starter?

Not that I'm nosy as to how she gets her jollies - you know the way men are always anxious if a woman can get her rocks off without help of a male - but it's a question that should be answered. So many questions need answering, obvious ones. Does she prefer a dildo to a vibrator? Does she not use either? How strange.

And others as well, to do with questions of identity:

A reader asks Jeffrey Toobin the obvious question:

From the description of your relationship with Ms. Kagan, I would bet that you have some insight on the claims of her sexual identity. One month ago there were reports that Ms. Kagan was gay and those reports were quickly followed by stern - offensive? - rebuttals by the Obama administration. This is apparently a big deal even though we aren't supposed to talk about "it." Mr. Toobin, did Ms. Kagan bring a date to your wedding? Why can't we discuss this matter? If she were married - to a man - there would not be silence. Would there be if she were married to a woman? Would she be nominated if she were?

But of course, however you look at it, whichever way you cut the cards, she's a single woman, an unholy state of unholy disgrace. A single woman who couldn't catch a man, and who can't display a woman on her arm! How can this be?

It's simply unimaginable, this strange situation of a career woman. How on earth could she be nominated if she was any of all three? A lonely inept woman with no emotional attachment to a man. A sordid closet dweller with a woman for an invisible partner. Or the double bunger, worst of all. A lesbian with no partner visible or invisible!

Shocking! And extraordinarily relevant to the legal matters which might pass her way.

To put it another way: Is Obama actually going to use a Supreme Court nominee to advance the cause of the closet (as well as kill any court imposition of marriage equality)? And can we have a clear, factual statement as to the truth? In a free society in the 21st Century, it is not illegitimate to ask. And it is cowardly not to tell.

Oh dear, it seems it isn't illegitimate to ask about Sullivan's sexual preferences and practices and so I must persist. But would he be cowardly and not tell? Seeing as he feels quite carefree about the sexual habits, preferences and practices of others ... and the outing of people in closets is a public duty ... for the good of all ... And there remains the matter of the gerbils ...

Well as you can imagine Sullivan mined this rich vein for days - if you trot off to his blog, you can see him sipping and savouring the flavour of the debate for days.

On and on he rambled, until finally the cloth ear picked up a message in the ether, and he came out with The Borking of Kagan:

... Will has persuaded me of one thing. I will say no more on this subject. I wish Ms Kagan all the best and hope the process is scrupulously fair to her. By all accounts she is a lovely person, a gregarious human being, a great persuader, and a judicial blank slate. I've asked one question I feel is legitimate and utterly without malice and I have received an answer. The answer is that I should not ask. I take it as a final one. I won't any more.

This question is now closed on this blog.

Oh dear, it seems I shouldn't have asked about Andrew Sullivan's deepest sexual practices, habits and desires after all. They're on the public record, and you can read about him in his very own wiki here. But even so, and to put a thin veneer of politeness over these chipboard proceedings, that question must remain closed on this blog. We might never know his position on gerbils, and so it goes.

But it's funny in his very own wiki to read this singular complaint:

... the real truth is that many on the Republican right just read everything I write through an anti-gay prism, because their homophobia — benign or not-so-benign, conscious or unconscious — is so overwhelming it occludes any genuine assessment of a person's thoughts outside this fact. See how Forbes cannot even keep the word gay out of quote marks. Just imagine the same sentence with the word "Jewish" replacing the word gay. It tells you everything you need to know about the moral core of conservatism today. It's sad and will one day be seen as embarrassing.

Come on down Kagan, spill all and cop a pasting. Sacrifice yourself on the altar of Sullivan's righteousness. Lay everything bare, even if there's nothing to bare. Until some day down the track the unveiling will be seen as tragic and perhaps even Borkian.

Oh dear.

Only in the fishbowl known as the United States, where privacy in the eye of the media is a meaningless concept. And the chance of returning to the day when John Kennedy could fuck anything that moved and no one said anything and he could act as President without anyone turning an eye now gone for ever.

And there were plenty of priapic presidents before him in the same vein. Did anybody give a toss about Roosevelt's various affairs, including the resumed affair with Lucy Mercer during the second world war, as opposed to the actual business of fighting the war? Unless you want an example of the strange thinking of Lucy, who as a Catholic refused to contemplate a divorce which would mean her marrying a divorced man with five children.

Did I mention Sullivan is Catholic?

Yep, in the fishbowl, anything and everything can be used against you, and innocence is now gone from the world ...

And now, if you follow the tortured logic, all must be revealed, and there is no private space for the public person, where everyone must be outed, right down to their love of oysters and snails ... or gerbils.

Sadly, is there any chance in the United States where you might be able to return to a point where someone might actually be able to say "Actually, it's none of your fucking business, you perving peeping tom?"

Nope, not when politics and showbiz and the media are now inextricably intermingled and reading Sullivan is just one short step away from reading the National Enquirer or watching Jerry Springer.

Think of politics in America as a trip to Vegas. It's the only way it makes sense ...

Yep, it's time to get involved in politics ...