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Last night Bill O’Reilly addressed the rumors that surround the sexuality of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan with Washington Post columnist (and certified Beltway insider) Sally Quinn. The interview featured some odd miscommunication; Quinn blamed the White House for initially insisting that Kagan is not gay (because they don’t know for sure), to which O’Reilly responded “Americans have a right to know if their Supreme Court Justice has an orientation that may or may not dictate which way she votes on a vital issue.”

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O’Reilly: Don’t Americans have a right to know on something as important as gay marriage if there is a Supreme Court justice nominee who is in that world? Don’t they have a right to know that?

Quinn: My feeling is that her private personal life, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of anybody else is her business.

O’Reilly: How do you know it doesn’t get in the way of her judicial decisions?

Quinn: Well, you know, you could argue that the conservative argument is that basically what you need to do is to follow the law. and that’s all that matters.

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On both sides of the battle between oppressed groups and their oppressors exist extremists. On one side are those whose prejudices help sustain the inequities most of us are trying to eradicate. On the other are those who refuse to see any significant progress, either because their worldview is seen through a victim's lens or they make their living picking fights.

The majority are in the middle -- everyday folks just hoping for a level playing field but too apathetic or scared to be seen as a racist, or sexist, or traitor to our religion, our political party or people.

Consequently, the silence of the many allows the hypocrisy of the few extremists to sully our airwaves, pollute our politics and ultimately taint our future. I see such hypocrisy at play in the flap over rumors about the sexual orientation of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

Now, I understand the need to have positive, openly gay role models in the public eye. But I also believe there is a need to practice what is preached. If a person's sexuality is supposed to be a nonissue in the workplace -- which is the crux behind passing the Employee Non-Discrimination Act -- then prominent gay people such as Andrew Sullivan, who in his blog is calling on Kagan to reveal her sexual orientation, need to stop making it one.

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