“As the first openly gay man to be confirmed as a federal judge,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told a nearly empty chamber before the vote, “he will be a symbol of how much we have achieved as a country in just the last few decades. Deborah A. Batts, a lesbian, has been a federal judge in Manhattan since 1994. “When there are so many qualified gay and lesbian people and none of them get on the bench, you scratch your head and wonder why,” said Mr. Schumer, who recommended the appointment last year to Mr. Obama. That’s what this will say.” 
 
 Mr. Oetken, 45, a graduate of Yale Law School, was a law clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the Supreme Court before working for the Justice Department and then as associate counsel to President Bill Clinton.
– The US got its first openly gay male federal judge last night. J. Paul Oetken, a former lawyer for the Clinton administration, was confirmed by the Senate on an 80-13 vote and could take his Manhattan seat this week, the New York Times reports. "The old barriers that existed in society are crumbling. That’s what this will say," declares Sen. Charles Schumer, who recommended Oetken's appointment to President Obama last year. Dana Milbank agrees: "The remarkable thing about what happened on the Senate floor Monday night was that it was utterly unremarkable," he writes in the Washington Post, noting that Oetken's confirmation included not a single word of objection, even from "ardent social conservatives"—nor any reaction when the "lopsided vote tally" was read. "It would be premature to believe that Oetken’s easy confirmation heralds some new post-sexual era in American politics," he continues. "But it was a signal moment nonetheless."