Apparently Elena Kagan is a softball player, or something like that. It is not a subject I care to write about, want to write about, or think is relevant to much of anything considering the woman’s only definitive answer on any matter of jurisprudence is that she believes there is no federal constitutional right to gay marriage.

So that’s that.

Except it isn’t. And it is not because of the right, but because of the left.

The Wall Street Journal ran a picture on its front page of Kagan playing softball in college. Immediately, the paper was attacked by gay rights groups claiming the picture was a coded message about Kagan’s sexuality.¹

Those of us who have been paying attention to the whole business of this nomination recognized the running of that picture for what it was — the only flattering picture of Ms. Kagan to come out in the press in the past several weeks.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Ben Domenech referenced what is well known by most anyone who has been following Kagan’s rise to Solicitor General and wrote positively that it is a good day in the country when we’ve reached a point that the President can nominate a non-heterosexual to the Supreme Court. The White House immediately denounced Domenech and called his noting the open rumors and talk at Harvard Yard about Ms. Kagan’s sexuality and willingness to be seen in public with her partner all a bunch of lies.

Well now the left is in open warfare over the issue and is split in ways the media would be all too willing to cover if the split were on the right. Half want a definitive answer as to Elena Kagan’s sexuality. The other half are ready to attack anyone who suggests she is as if accusing someone of being a lesbian is a terrible thing.

The rest of us will have to wait for the left to sort this all out. In the meantime, I’d just like to say that attacking the Wall Street Journal for running arguably the most flattering photo of this woman to appear in the past several weeks really is a ridiculous waste of time and does not help avoid the conversation of whether she is or is not what everyone who pays attention to these things seems to already suspect she is.

It does of course lead to the question everyone is asking privately, but cannot bring themselves to ask publicly due to matters of taste and etiquette: is America ready for a softball player on the United States Supreme Court?

We had that question raised over and over as to race when Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination in 2008. Are we now ready to have it regarding sex and the Supreme Court? The left seems insistent that we must, except when insisting we must not talk about it at all.