"I don't think a person who acknowledges that they have gay tendencies is disqualified per se for the job,” Sessions tells Mark Halperin on Morning Joe.

That doesn't really answer the question of whether he thinks somebody who is openly gay, as opposed to struggling with those "tendencies," is qualified, though I think he meant to indicate he wouldn't pick that ground to fight on.

The politics of appointing a lesbian justice — which is certainly a possibility if he's looking for intellectual heavyweights who aren't on the bench — aren't all that straightforward. On one hand, it would add a new charge to an appointment that, if Obama plays his cards right, will sail through and chain GOP leaders to the social issues they're trying to avoid. (And the appointment will focus to some degree on same-sex marriage no matter who's appointed.)

On the other hand, polling suggests American are broadly opposed to using sexuality as a qualification for hiring, and are moving very fast toward something more than tolerance of gays and lesbians. So there's an element of the right that could come across as straightforwardly intolerant, and a larger element that will use language ("gay tendencies") that are a bit out of step with the majority.

Still, this isn't a battle Obama seems interested in having right now, and so I suspect White House political calculations will wind up seeing open homosexuality as a minus, not a plus, in what's always a zero-sum game.

UPDATE: Alternately, one reader suggests that Obama will reject that "zero sum" calculus, and another sees it this way:

A fight is inevitable when you're dealing with the appointment of a Supreme Court justice. It's more of a question of what the battle will be over: affirmative action (a loser of an issue) or whether sexual orientation should be considered when evaluating a candidate (a winner of an issue).