Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Some gender and sexuality firsts

Last week Jared Polis was sworn is as the third out member of Congress, and the first to come out before being elected to his first term (unlike Reps. Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank, who came out as incumbents). He will sit on the House Education and Labor committee.

Since the House also swore in its first female speaker for her second term, it's nice to see that they're finally made their own written rules gender-neutral. On a more substantive note, they quickly got down to business and passed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which now goes to the Senate.

Across the pond, South Africa's president has appointed Justice Edwin Cameron to that country's Constitutional Court, making him the first openly gay jurist on any nation's highest court. (The U.S. might see its own first out Supreme Court Justice if Obama were to appoint Stanford law professor and perennial shortlister Kathleen Sullivan.)

[This post was supposed to happen before now, but Blogger and I did not see eye to eye about it.]

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