Maura Dolan has a very personal interview with Supreme Court appointee Martin Jenkins in today’s Los Angeles Times. The 66-year-old Jenkins, who would be the first openly gay justice on the court, talks about coming out only during the last four or five years — he “found the experience invigorating,” the article says — and falling in love for the first time two years ago. “ ‘The process of coming out has been ongoing,’ Jenkins said.”
Dolan reports that, although three of Jenkins’s earlier judicial appointments were made by Republican governors (a fourth, to the federal district court, was made by President Clinton), Jenkins “rejected any label . . ., saying he applied the law as he saw it. ‘I am a lifelong Democrat, that is what I am,’ he said.”
The article also mentions that, if, as is probable, Jenkins’s appointment is confirmed, he will soon be the second Southern Californian on the court; he and his partner have bought a house in Los Angeles County and will move there once Jenkins’s East Bay home sells. Justice Joshua Groban also lives in Los Angeles.
