Is Elena Kagan Gay?

Question: Is she or isn’t she?

Answer: Who cares?

Though by this point tedious to the extreme, the “mysterious” sexual orientation of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan continues to be a hot topic among bloggers, cable bloviators and even the dinosaurian MSM.

Did I say “hot topic”? I meant obsession. Fixation. Fetish. Pubic-hair-in-a-Coke-can-craziness. [SIGNUP]

According to the untethered denizens of the blogosphere, it’s obvious that Solicitor General Kagan is a lesbo of the first order. After all, she’s 50, she’s never been married and she plays softball. (Good glove, no stick, of course.)

Even more damning, Kagan wears dowdy clothing and doesn’t cross her legs like a proper lady, writes Robin Givhan, Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic for The Washington Post. Sure signs of a Sapphic sister, or at least a Sapphic Shister.

Thus far, however, the questions that would truly determine Kagan’s fitness as a Supreme have not been asked. Does she shave her legs? Wear boxers to bed? Play Melissa Etheridge on her iPod? Have a “Cagney & Lacey” poster in her attic?

One can only hope that this line of questioning will be included in Kagan’s Senate confirmation hearings. Our own Arlen Specter should do the honors, as an encore to his prosecutorial evisceration of Anita Hill. Go out with a bang, as it were, Senator.

For the record, Kagan, the first female dean of Harvard Law School, is not the first potential Supreme whose marital status has prompted whispers of homosexuality.

When Justice David Souter, a 50-year-old bachelor, was nominated in 1990, there was speculation as to why he had never married. Ditto for White House counsel Harriet Miers during her 24-day run under George Bush in 2005.

Undoubtedly, there will be an openly-gay Supreme Court justice someday. It won’t be Elena Kagan, because she somehow manages to keep her private life private. (Good luck with that, btw.)

Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass whether Kagan likes girls or boys, as long as they’re over 18. I don’t care if she’s a fashionista, as long as her judicial robe is clean. And how she crosses her legs is entirely up to her, as long as she doesn’t pull a Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.

My final verdict: Kagan should be judged from the neck up. Anything less is below the belt. Case closed.

GAIL SHISTER, TV columnist for the Inquirer for 25 years, teaches writing at Penn and is a columnist for tvnewser.com. She writes for The Philly Post on Tuesdays.