Rod Dreher calls attention (severe vulgarity alert!) to a reading list of LGBTQ+ books that Tiffany D. Blakey, Fair Employment Practices Officer at the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, has somehow seen fit to propose to all federal judges to celebrate “National LGBTQ+ Pride Heritage Month.”
I don’t know what authority Blakey thinks she has to decree such a celebration. For what it’s worth, while President Biden proclaimed such a month last year and is sure to do so again this year, he hasn’t yet done so, and even if he had, why would a low-level officer in the bureaucratic apparatus of the judicial branch take it upon herself to treat Biden’s proclamation as governing the judicial branch?
Here is Blakey’s memo, which she sent by email to these recipient categories:
Courts of Appeals Chief Judges, Courts of Appeals Active Judges, Courts of Appeals Senior Judges, District & National Court Chief Judges, District & National Court Active Judges, District & National Court Senior Judges, Bankruptcy Court Chief Judges, Bankruptcy Court Judges, Full-time Magistrate Judges, Part-time Magistrate Judges, Circuit Executives, Federal Public Defenders, Community Defenders, District Court Executives, Courts of Appeals Clerks, District & National Court Clerks, Bankruptcy Court Clerks, Chief Probation Officers, Chief Pretrial Services Officers, Senior Staff Attorneys, Circuit Librarians, Chief Circuit Mediators, Bankruptcy Administrators.
In Dreher’s words, the list is “all trashy softcore and romance novels” and does not contain “[a]ny serious title about LGBT history or life — such as James Kirchick’s recently published (and well reviewed) Secret History, about closeted gay life in Washington.”
Blakey states that she believes that these books can “be used as part of a larger fairness[-]in[-]employment program.” “Sure,” replies Dreher, “if you want to employ mouthy lesbians who hate pro-lifers and the Catholic Church, gay guys who seduce straight ones, and men who want to be sexed by other men they call ‘Daddy.’”