Public Opinion of LGB Supreme Court Nominees

Recently, there has been an increase in political attention to the demographic characteristics of judicial nominees in the United States and how they can affect public opinion from judicial scholars. Particular emphasis has been placed on race and gender (i.e., male versus female), with comparatively less focus on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. This paper uses a conjoint experiment to evaluate the relationship between public support and lesbian, gay, and bisexual Supreme Court nominees. The results show that the general public is less likely to support bisexual and gay nominees than straight ones. It also shows that when someone is gay (bisexual), they are more likely to support a nominee who is gay (bisexual) as well, along with a strong partisan divide in supporting gay (bisexual) nominees. These results have implications for shared descriptive representation, symbolic representation, and the support of judicial nominees.