According to Quinlan's analysis, it doesn't make sense that Kagan is gay:

President Obama's nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan, has steadfastly refused to divulge her sexual orientation, despite a CBS News blog item claiming that Kagan is known in Harvard circles as a lesbian.  In response, the White House blasted CBS News for its "lies" and CBS pulled the item off its website.

But if Kagan is a lesbian, why would the White House insist that she is not when Obama made gay rights part of his platform for change?  In issuing this month's gay pride presidential proclamation, Obama stated he is "proud to be the first President to appoint openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100 days of an Administration."

So Kagan and her alleged lesbianism should not be an issue for the White House or the Democrats, who control the Senate vote for Kagan's judicial nomination.

And it doesn't make sense that she's not gay:

Some of Kagan's friends have told Politico that she is frustrated by the persistence of the gay rumors, but "worried that denying them could imply some anti-gay prejudice." But this makes no sense either-isn't the whole point of the gay rights movement to allow people to be free to declare who they really are, without stigma? If the only way for a middle-aged woman to declare that she is straight is to marry a man, wouldn't that be a step backward, and not forward, in liberal gender politics?

THEREFORE:

There is, however, another possibility. Could it be that Kagan is ex-gay?  That would explain the White House insistence on Kagan's heterosexuality and Kagan's silence about her past sexual preference.

That's right, Obama has just nominated the woman who will be our nation's first closeted ex-gay Supreme Court justice. No other explanation makes sense. Now, we must work to make Kagan our first openly ex-gay Supreme Court justice. On that day, our country will finally grant heterosexuals the same respect it gives gay people:

As an ex-gay myself, I sympathize with Kagan and the Obama administration.  I have had to face taunts, threats, and phone calls to my employer demanding that I be fired.  There is no hate like that directed against the ex-gay community. And the President knows it.

. . . So Ms. Kagan, do not be afraid to come out of the closet.  Regardless of our political differences, ex-gays like me, and maybe you, should be able to live openly just like when we were homosexuals.

On Tuesday, June 8, the Rev. Patrick Mahoney arrived at Planned Parenthood with the intention of going to jail over a fence.

Two months earlier, the District had granted the organization a permit to build a 42-inch-high “wrought iron steel fence” around the front lawn of its clinic at 1108 16th St. NW. When Mahoney learned of the construction, he notified police, press, and fellow activists; marched onto the lawn; and knelt to pray in hopes of getting handcuffed.

Landscaping changes rarely prompt civil disobedience. Mahoney, a Presbyterian minister and longtime anti-abortion activist, is more concerned with what lies beyond the fence: a grassy, 40-foot-long entryway with a paved center walk that leads to the clinic, where the services include abortions. The turf has historical significance for Mahoney: For years, he and his allies have come to the yard to pray, confront patients, and attempt to convince pregnant women not to abort.

The new barrier, equipped with signs reading, “Private Property. No Trespassing. Violators Will be Prosecuted,” is meant to keep the anti-choicers at a distance. But it also provides an opportunity for Mahoney to pursue his second-favorite activity involving the property in front of the clinic: litigation.

Before Mahoney staged his public prayer, he brought in his go-to attorney, James Henderson of the American Center for Law & Justice. Henderson investigated the issue with city officials and uncovered city maps indicating that the 40 feet between Planned Parenthood’s doorway and the 16th Street sidewalk is zoned as “public space.”
Clinic reps maintain that the property is theirs to police. “The fence serves to protect the health center and our patients from violations of D.C. trespassing laws while still allowing those who are opposed to legal abortion to exercise their First Amendment rights and express their views along the sidewalk,” Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington CEO Laura Meyers said in a statement.

D.C. police concurred, enabling Mahoney his photogenic arrest. “At this point, our attorneys have advised us that they do consider it private property inside the fence line, so if you go inside the fence line, you will be encroaching upon private property,” Cmdr. Hilton Burton informed Mahoney shortly before his planned prayer. Mahoney prayed anyway, Burton arrested him, and the reverend promised to pursue the issue in court.

Indeed, Mahoney rarely misses the opportunity for a court appearance. In 2000, he sued the Supreme Court over a decision banning large picket signs from sidewalks on the high court’s grounds, thus preventing his entourage from toting what the Washington Post described as a gigantic “full-color depiction of a decapitated fetus.” In 2005, he sued the U.S. Marshals Service for the right to picket in favor of the Ten Commandments in a restricted area opposite St. Matthew’s Cathedral. In 2009, he sued the District for refusing to allow a “chalk art demonstration” in front of the White House that was meant to slam President Obama’s “radical support of abortion.”

But Mahoney’s preferred battleground is Planned Parenthood’s walkway. Over the past 20 years, Mahoney and his colleagues have launched several protracted court cases asserting their religious freedom to “counsel” those on their way into the facility.

To local anti-abortion activists, the 40 feet are worth the decades-long battle. “It’s better access,” explains Erik Whittington of Rock for Life, an anti-abortion initiative targeted at teens. Whittington says he’s prayed outside the clinic “at least once a year” since 1995. “I’ve been up there next to the door; I’ve been up on the grass leading prayer circles,” he says. “For women who are coming here to have an abortion, they’re walking up on that public property for about 15 seconds...Forty feet is a long way.”

With the fence, D.C.’s anti-abortion activists are forced to set up shop on the 16th Street sidewalk, where it’s difficult even to identify women seeking clinic services until they’re already out of earshot. “You don’t really have enough time to talk to them that way,” says Dick Retta, an activist who is familiar with the disputed terrain. “Outside the fence, you’ve only got maybe three to four seconds.”

Back in the ’80s, Mahoney would commandeer local clinic entrances for days at a time. The dispute over the Planned Parenthood entryway originated in 1989, when Mahoney and Christian activist organization Operation Rescue staged a series of “rescue” missions “involving physical blockades” that prevented access to several local health centers. In response, District Court judges laid down an injunction barring the protesters from “trespassing on, blockading, impeding or obstructing access to” D.C. abortion clinics.

Since then, Mahoney has fought a series of injunctions designed to keep him at a distance from local abortion providers. In 1994, Congress made the courts’ job easier with the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The measure forced Mahoney to reconsider his tactics. He began, of course, by challenging the act in court. Later, he settled for talks—on-site prayer demonstrations and targeted “sidewalk counseling”—instead of blockades. The idea was to provoke a reaction that Mahoney could then take to court. After all, what’s a few days in front of a clinic when you can tie up an abortion provider in litigation for years?

On Jan. 23, 1998, the day after the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Mahoney planned one of his arrest-baiting protests at now-defunct abortion provider the Capitol Women’s Center. When Mahoney arrived, “volunteers had already created a human chain in front of the clinic” to assist those entering, according to court documents. Five of Mahoney’s cohorts took a knee on the center’s sidewalk, at which point police officers “cordoned off the front of the clinic with police tape.” Mahoney crossed the line anyway and was arrested for violating FACE. A court issued a permanent injunction forbidding the minister and his allies from “coming within a twenty-foot-radius of any reproductive health facility” located inside the bounds of the Capital Beltway—including Planned Parenthood.

More recently, Mahoney’s litigious strategy has been embraced by younger activists. In 2005, Christendom College student Daniel Heenan sued Planned Parenthood after a tussle with a security guard. In those pre-fence days, the protesters’ no-fly zone was delimited by a spray-painted line on the pavement 20 feet from the clinic. According to court documents, it marked “the boundaries of an injunction issued by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia” against—whom else?—a “discrete group of individuals affiliated with Rev. Patrick Mahoney, who had been found by that court to have violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994.”

Inspired by Mahoney, Heenan had turned up the previous May intending to cross the boundary. Police were summoned. Pro-choice volunteers linked arms. Heenan crossed the line. Then, according to court documents, Harry James, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer working as a clinic security guard, “placed one hand on Heenan’s collar and another on his belt” and “attempted to turn Heenan around and walk him away from the building.” At some point in the commotion, “Heenan fell to the ground, and James tumbled over him.”

Heenan, also represented by Henderson, asked for $35,000. He lost in court. But, just like Mahoney’s suit, the ruckus took up a little bit of Planned Parenthood’s time and energy and money, which was kind of the point.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

* On Tiger Beatdown, The Rejectionist writes about attempting to evade misogyny by adopting acceptably "masculine" interests. (This tactic works for both men and women!) Namely: Drinking too much, and reading "manfiction":

When I was younger I did that thing that some of us ladies do, the thing of working very hard to be The Girl Who Was Cool Enough to Hang Out With the Boys. Being that girl was an exhausting job, fraught with peril; it involved drinking a whole bunch, not talking much, constantly making sure the boys knew how much more down I was than other girls, and carrying around at all times one of the following three novels: All the Pretty Horses ,On the Road, or Junky (even at the highest pinnacle of my internalized misogyny, I never made it through Henry Miller). It was an unforgivable sign of weakness to read books about (let alone by) women, who sat around in kitchens popping out babies, harping on their menfolk, and doing the dishes. Women were boring! They were gross! Passive! Or just plain mean! They didn’t think much! They couldn’t possibly do exciting things, like drive cars across the country or drive spaceships to the moon, kiss girls, duke it out with their fathers in a sudden eruption of years’ worth of Repressed Sentiment, pursue villains craftily, or survive the streets of turn-of-the-century London as cunning and wily orphans. A professed affinity for Manfiction was a central tenet of this precarious Cool Girl identity; a Cool Girl was always ready to support the literary analysis presented by the dudes, even after consuming a fifth of bourbon at three in the morning.

* Hysteria! introduces us to man candles, or as I like to call them, "mandles." One of them is "fart" scented:

There’s not much analysis to be had here, other than to point out that anytime a company or marketing department attempts to define “masculinity” via something like a scented candle, hilarious results ensue.  Some of the candles come in scents that you’d pretty much expect – baseball, football, golf course.  Oh, and of course “fart.”  Because no man is leading a complete life if he isn’t entirely surrounded by fart jokes.  Then, of course, there are the strange selection of apparently manly food items: pot roast, pizza, popcorn (?), bacon.  They can be paired with manly drinks, which consist solely of “cup o’ joe” and beer.

What really gets me, though, are the weird concept scents that they create once they run out of obvious objects that seem “masculine.”  The line offers not only a “garage” scent (which smells of oil and rubber) and a “fishing dock” scent (which we do not carry, thankfully), but also a candle called, simply, “FREEDOM.”  Apparently, Freedom smells like cinnamon and candle wax.  Who knew?

* In the fall, the Supreme Court will hear arguments concerning the right of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church to picket military funerals"

A sampling of the signs carried at [Iraq veteran Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder's] 2006 funeral at St. John's Catholic Church in Westminster, Md., included "God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11," "Semper Fi Fags," "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "Priests Rape Boys." The demonstrators abided by the law and stayed away from the funeral itself.

* Dr. George Tiller was murdered one year ago yesterday.

* Bitch Magazine writes on the recent barroom assault of Kat Stacks, a woman known for kissing-and-telling about sleeping with celebrities. Apparently, Stacks made some unkind comments about rapper Bow Wow; in retaliation, a man hit Stacks and demanded an apology on Bow Wow's behalf in a videotaped assault. Bitch's Andrea Plaid is wondering where the feminist outcry is:

When I read about the assault on Twitter, I found only one group who passionately spoke out against the men who perpetrated the violence against Stacks and those (men and women) who defended the assailants: mostly black feminist-minded people—and it was mostly black women at that. . . .  Everyone else was deafeningly silent. . . . Kat Stacks’ assault evoked no reaction from any other group of people. If all the feminist rhetoric about violence against women—that we should stand up and speak out wherever we see it—is true, then the violence committed against Kat Stacks is indeed a feminist issue and, honestly, I’d half-expected a bigger outcry from other people down with ending such violence.

However, it is such selective victim-choosing that cements the cynicism of feminism really being about and for certain people.

Photo via marek.krzystkiewicz, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Rating recent commentaries on issues related to Elena Kagan's appearance:

* WIN: NPR on how Kagan's success informs our speculation over her gender conformity: "Forty years after the birth of modern feminism, we are still not able to think about women who attain certain kinds of professional success as normatively gendered," writes Patricia J. Williams. It's not just Kagan's short haircut, her interest in poker and softball, and her wardrobe that have critics questioning her femininity: For women, "success itself is masculinized."

* LOSE: Beyond her concern that Kagan does not cross her legs when she sits in a skirt, Robin Givhan is also apparently dismayed that Kagan is not the nation's first cougar Supreme Court Justice:

Kagan is only 50 years old, which might be the equivalent of 100 in Hollywood years, but within the Washington establishment she would be classified as a young'un. Her style, however, makes her seem so much older. There's little that could be described as fun, impish or creative in her dress. It's a wholly middle-age approach to a wardrobe — if one stubbornly and inaccurately defines that transitional period in life as the beginning-of-the-end of sex appeal, effervescence and sprightliness. Kagan's version of middle-age seems stuck in a time warp, back when 50-something did not mean Kim Cattrall or Sharon Stone, "Cougar Town" or "Sex and the City."

Givhan adds: "Looking drab has its advantages for both men and women in the nation's capital because it insulates them from accusations of superficiality—a sure-fire political career killer." ORLY? Because from where I'm sitting (with my legs positioned in an unladylike spread-eagle formation), "looking drab" has inspired plenty of accusations against Kagan, thanks to people like . . . Robin Givhan.

* DRAW: The Atlantic's Wendy Kaminer rejects the high standards for Kagan's appearance:

What do Elena Kagan and Sarah Palin have in common?  They each offer complementary cautionary tales about the continuing appeal of an ersatz, "Sex in the City" feminism that rewards beauty and punishes plainness with all the subtlety and compassion of a Playboy centerfold.  Kagan's appearance and fashion sense are mocked or savaged, especially but not exclusively by pundits on the right, following a familiar script.  Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano endured similar hazings. Sarah Palin, to say the least, did not.

Palin's fans would counter that, conversely, she has paid a political price for her beauty.  Liberal feminists dislike Palin partly because she is "very attractive," feminist psyche expert Bill Bennett declared during the 2008 campaign.  He didn't explain how the equally attractive Gloria Steinem became a greatly admired liberal feminist leader, despite feminism's presumed disdain for good-looking women.

Well . . . that's an easy one. People of all political stripes (even feminists!) are more likely to use sexist attacks against women they really don't like. Why don't feminists ridicule Steinem based on her good looks? Because they like her politics, and it's easy to refrain from leveling anti-feminist attacks against women you don't want to attack. So why have some feminists ridiculed Palin's good looks? Because they don't like her politics, and it's really easy to fall into anti-feminist attacks against women you are eager to attack. Republicans were playing the same little game when they defended Palin against detractors who would ridicule her appearance, while condoning sexist remarks against certain other candidates (uhhh Hillary).

Today, the Supreme Court decided that sex offenders can be kept in prison "indefinitely"—regardless of the length of their sentences—if they are considered still "sexually dangerous." Our government reserves the right to exert complete control over the lives of sex offenders, possibly until they die. Is that enough time to rehabilitate them?

The background on the ruling, via the Associated Press:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal officials can indefinitely hold inmates considered "sexually dangerous" after their prison terms are complete.

By a 7-2 vote, the high court reversed a lower court decision that said Congress overstepped its authority in allowing indefinite detentions of considered "sexually dangerous."

"The statute is a 'necessary and proper' means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned by who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others," said Justice Stephen Breyer, writing the majority opinion.

President George W. Bush in 2006 signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which authorized the civil commitment of sexually dangerous federal inmates.

The act, named after the son of "America's Most Wanted" television host John Walsh, was challenged by four men who served prison terms ranging from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor. Their confinement was supposed to end more than two years ago, but prison officials said there would be a risk of sexually violent conduct or child molestation if they were released.

If our government is going to keep these offenders under lock and key until they're no longer "sexually dangerous," it better be doing everything in its power to attempt to make them safe. But if we put all our efforts toward rehabilitation, can we actually stop sex offenders from abusing again?

This 2007 New York Times story on "relapse prevention" rehabilitation programs for sex offenders suggests that the answer is "maybe." Take the case of Bill Price, a former Sunday-school-teaching pedophile who has admitted to abusing 21 children. Price's rehabilitation plan is targeted at reducing all risk of offending again, once he's back in society:

A requirement of his treatment, the plan catalogs on five single-spaced pages the tactics Mr. Price has learned to stop molesting.

There are 42 so far, including avoiding places where children congregate, abstaining from alcohol, shunning the Internet and sniffing ammonia whenever he has a deviant thought.

“It was just like a hunt for me,” Mr. Price, 59, a former Sunday school teacher, said of his sexual crimes. “I kept choosing children because they were easier prey; they were easier to deal with than women.”

But will the 42-step plan work? History says probably not:

Treatment plans like Mr. Price’s, known as relapse prevention, have been a cornerstone of efforts to reform sex offenders for the past 20 years. Yet there is no convincing evidence that the approach works, or that others do either.

Similar to aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous, relapse prevention has sex offenders own up to wrongdoing and resign themselves to a lifelong day-to-day struggle with temptation. But one of the few authoritative studies of the method, conducted in California from 1985 to 2001, found that those who entered relapse prevention treatment were slightly more likely to offend again than those who got no therapy at all.

A relapse prevention plan like Price's isn't the only approach to rehabilitating sex offenders, but no other approach has been found any more successful—except, of course, for keeping them locked up. For a few reasons, sex offender rehabilitation is still very much an evolving discipline.  Some look down upon allocating resources to helping people who abuse children; since it can be difficult to get pedophiles to talk, the sample groups here can be very small; some offenders will simply play along in order to get out of jail. One lawyer interviewed in the Times story refers to sex offenders undergoing rehabilitation programs as "living experiments."

So far, the gains that have been made in the field of sex offender rehabilitation have not been very encouraging. One study showed that after five years, 15 percent of released sex offenders would offend again. Medical methods of treatment—like chemical castration—have an undetermined effect on re-offending rates. And methods used to figure out which convicts are likely to offend again—like polygraph tests and "penile plethysmograph" tests—are inconclusive.

Particularly in light of the Supreme Court ruling, it's clear that a great deal more research needs to be done. In the meantime, the best way we know to stop re-offending may actually be waiting a very long time: "research has also suggested that even lifelong offenders tend to stop, for the most part, by the time they reach their 70s."

Photo via laurapadgett, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Writing in the Awl's Sex Offender week series, Sady Doyle goes long on Rivers Cuomo and why he (and his cute glasses) have messed you up "forever."

* In an attempt to disprove the allegation that teabaggers employed racial slurs against black members of Congress at a rally, Andrew Beibart has agreed to donate $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund if anyone can produce "video and audio evidence that this occurred." Somehow, none of the accused racists attending this rally have stepped forward to donate a bunch of money to this organization. Hmm!

* Is Dita Von Teese a feminist? The answer is complicated, according to this interview with the burlesque performer:

Hmmm. Well, it’s a question that’s posed to me quite often and it’s frustrating, because if you look at the definition of what it means to be a feminist, it’s to have the same rights as a man. If someone tells me that I cannot create, produce, direct these shows and star in them, that that should be for a man should do, then that doesn’t really jive with feminist ideals. It’s kind of an argument I hate even addressing because I think it’s just a stupid thing to ask. I’m sorry, but you know, I get asked it all the time! I’m, like, how can I be anti-feminist if I’m pro-woman and all my fans are women, so if you say it’s anti-feminist and you come to my show, or you come to one of my book signings, and it’s 80 percent women, how do you explain that means being an anti-feminist? A lot of women look to me as someone who is embracing her sexual power and confidence and trying to explain you don’t have to fit into the media’s mainstream image of “sexy.” I feel like the only time someone should call me “anti-feminist” is if they don’t understand what I do and who my fans are and what I’m standing up for. . . It’s not a word I don’t really like to address, you know? It’s not even that I want to call myself that, I just sort of go, “Oooooh!” It’s an eyeballer roller. (Laughs) You know what I mean? It’s like, oh man, it’s a weird question. The word “feminist” is so broad.

* Melissa McEwan tells Dr. Drew to shut up.

* Kate Harding takes down Peter Beinart's campaign to put a "mom" on the Supreme Court, in order to provide a role model for girls who want to snag one of the unlikeliest positions in American government, and also make babies. First point: There's already a mom on the Supreme Court!

Photo via State Library and Archives of Florida

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments over a law banning video depictions of animal cruelty. The law was party inspired by the sensationalized "crush porn" craze. In crush porn, women stomp on small animals, in bare feet or in heels, in order for crush porn fetishists to get off.

Crushing puppies and kitties to death in the name of sexual arousal obviously ain't legal. The question posed to the Court was whether disseminating video evidence of these crimes constituted a crime in itself—even if the evidence was being used to educate people not to hurt animals.

The Supreme Court will likely overturn the ban on "crush porn" and other filmed animal cruelties. I support upholding the First Amendment position on this one, but I'd rather I had never, ever become aware of the fact that there are people out there who actually get off on killing widdle aminals beneath their scary feets.

Luckily, a completely safe, totally adorable—and porn-inspired!—kitty video has surfaced to wash all those crush-porn thoughts away. It's called "3 Cats, 1 Steak," and I've watched it twice already. Enjoy.

Scientific American chimes in on a bummer note to say that pancreatic cancer "is one of the most deadly forms of cancer." President Obama has offered his "thoughts and prayers." I don't envy the guy who'd have to replace her. Ginsburg, who is 75 years old, was appointed to the court 16 years ago by President Clinton; after Sandra Day O'Connor's exit, she's the only lady we've got left on the high court.

I had the pleasure to wait on her at a Kennedy Center function a couple years ago. She's a tiny lady, but she finished her plate. I think she asked for red. When she left I totally stole her place setting.

The case hinges on an apparent conflict between Title XI, which ensures equal opportunity in schools based on gender, and Section 1983 of United States Code, which states:

Every person who . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

Some background on Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, from On the Docket:

During the 2000-2001 school year, Jacqueline Fitzgerald, a kindergartener in Hyannis, Mass., told her parents that an older student on the school bus had bullied her into lifting up her skirt. Her parents contacted school administrators, and Jacqueline then identified the boy who she alleged had been harassing her. The school did not have a written policy to address peer-on-peer sexual harassment.

The school, along with local law enforcement, began investigating the situation. The police determined that “there was insufficient evidence to proceed criminally” and the school ultimately decided not to take disciplinary action against the boy.

School officials suggested placing Jacqueline on a different bus or segregating her and the other kindergartners from the older students on the bus. Her parents rejected both of these options and proposed that the school either transfer the boy to a different bus or place an adult
monitor on the bus to ensure that no harassment occurred.

After the school district declined these options, the parents filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. They alleged violations of Title IX, the U.S. Constitution and Massachusetts state law. In particular, they argued that Jacqueline had “a clearly established right under state and federal statutory and constitutional law to equal access to all benefits and privileges of a public education, and a right to be free of sexual harassment in school."

The girl's parents filed claims under Section 1983 and Title IX; a First Circuit Court of Appeals, after denying the Title IX claim, maintained that "the potential availability of relief under Title IX preempts additional, constitutional claims"—like those under Section 1983.

Welcome back to the Manliest Workplace in D.C. Tournament. With the Culture bracket languishing in a statistical dead heat between the Washington Redskins and the Smithsonian Institution, it's time to turn our attentions to the granddaddy of all granddaddy employers: The Federal Government! (See the full 64-workplace bracket here).

Today, one-seed the Supreme Court takes on the eight-seed U.S. Postal Service. Will a collection of robed-swathed old men fall to a legion of boys in short pants? Let's find out!

THE SUPREME COURT: This high-talkin' decidey-branch hashes it out on issues manly (District of Columbia v. Heller) and non (Roe v. Wade). But in the court of Man, will these Justices be served? Let's go to the line-up:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts (Male, 10 points)
Justice John Paul Stevens (Male, 9 points)
Justice Antonin Scalia (Male, 8 points)
Justice Anthony Kennedy (Male, 7 points)
Justice David Souter (Male, 6 points)
Justice Clarence Thomas (Male, 5 points)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Female, ZERO)
Justice Stephen Breyer (Male, 3 points)
Justice Samuel Alito (Male, 2 points)
Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (Female, ZERO)

Order in the court! In a striking 8-to-2 decision, the court comes down on the very manly side with a score of 50 on the manly index. Anita who?

—

U.S. POSTAL SERVICE: They deliver your mail, but do they deliver the male? It's too easy!

Postmaster General John E. Potter (Male, 10 points)
Deputy Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe (Male, 9 points)
President Robert F. Bernstock (Male, 8 points)
CFO Harold Glen Walker (Male, 7 points)
Chief HR Officer Anthony Vegliante (Male, 6 points)
CIO Ross Philo (Male, 5 points)
Senior VP Mary Anne Gibbons (Female, ZERO)
Senior VP Linda Kingsley (Female, ZERO)
Senior VP Stephen M. Kearney (Male, 2 points)
Gov. Relations VP Marie Therese Dominguez (Female, ZERO)

Return to sender! Even with an impressive 47 out of 55 points on the manly index, the U.S. Postal Services falls to the highest court in the land. Duh. Tune in again tomorrow when Bush's cabinet faces off against the Federal Reserve!

Photo of the Supreme Court by the wonderful NCinDC; U.S. Postal Museum by Dustin Coates.

As a law professor at Howard University, Dawn Martin was stalked by a delusional, homeless, serial stalker of African-American female professors. The stalker, Leonard Harrison, was searching for the physical embodiment of his "fantasy" wife — a fictional female character, Geneva Crenshaw, in a book, And We are not Saved, written by Prof. Derrick Bell.

Instead of following its own security procedures to ban the stalker from campus, Howard responded to her requests for protection by refusing to renew her teaching contract. Prof. Martin sued Howard,alleging sexual harassment/hostile work environment and retaliation for protesting sexual harassment.

The hearing is set for November 14. More on this story as it develops.

From the Associated Press:

The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut's civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.

Importantly, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell said she disagreed with the ruling, but urged conservative activists not to fight it.

"The Supreme Court has spoken," Rell said in a statement. "I do not believe their voice reflects the majority of the people of Connecticut. However, I am also firmly convinced that attempts to reverse this decision — either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution — will not meet with success."

Connecticut joins Massachusetts and California in allowing same-sex marriage. Speaking as a heterosexual woman—admittedly, one with no current interest in marriage—I think heterosexual couples would do well to take this into account when planning to get hitched. A man and a woman who marry in one of the 47 states (and District of Columbia) that don't allow gay marriage do so knowing that their relatives, neighbors, and friends are not afforded that same privilege. Same-sex couples shouldn't be the only ones traveling to Connecticut to make it official.

In an interview released today, Couric asks Palin and Joe Biden essentially the same questions: "Why do you think Roe v. Wade was a good/bad decision?" and "Are there Supreme Court decisions you disagree with?" Biden answers them; Palin leaves me with a rage that I fear can only be satiated by gunning down a wild Alaskan wolf from an aircraft.

Just in case you missed it:

Couric: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?

Palin: Well, let's see. There's, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but …

Couric: Can you think of any?

Palin: Well, I could think of … any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But, you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I'm so privileged to serve, wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.

Seriously, could Sarah Palin pass the Q-and-A portion of the Miss America pageant? Maybe this is why Palin couldn't clinch the Miss Alaska title—it sure wasn't the swimsuit portion.