Thursday, May 7, 2009

John Thune = homophobe

In the wake of Justice Souter's impending retirement from the Supreme Court, some news outlets are discussing the fact that a couple of the judges on President Obama's short list for possible Supreme Court nominations are...gasp...lesbians!

Our junior senator finds this unacceptable:

One Republican senator on Wednesday warned a gay nominee would be too polarizing.

“I know the administration is being pushed, but I think it would be a bridge too far right now,” said GOP Chief Deputy Whip John Thune (S.D.). “It seems to me this first pick is going to be a kind of important one, and my hope is that he’ll play it a little more down the middle. A lot of people would react very negatively.”


I'd like to think we're at a point as a nation where it would be unacceptable to admit in public that you'd oppose a gay nominee to the Supreme Court only for being gay...or, wait, "polarizing." Guess not, though.

1 comments:

Angie said...

Wow. I can't believe there wasn't some kind of "But I did have a gay friend once!" line in there somewhere. Usually he's a little less blunt in his opposition, something more like, "I like gay people...I just don't think they should have any rights or anything."

I wonder what Senator Thune would think if it turns out that the best qualified person happens to be gay? Would he say we should go with a less qualified straight justice? It's so tragic that Thune is apparently willing to compromise the integrity of this process.