The Obama administration continues its efforts to get an openly gay man nominated to the federal bench.

The third such nomination was made today, involving a New York lawyer, J. Paul Oetken. Another nomination is pending, and yet another tanked when statements attributed to the nominee, but denied, came to light.

Read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/nyregion/28judge.html?hp

"yet another tanked when statements attributed to the nominee, but denied, came to light."

Are we that thin-skinned in this country that those alleged remarks disqualify a nominee?

Very disheartening. Here's what the article says he said.

Mr. Alter, a graduate of Columbia and Yale Law, was an assistant United States attorney and later national director for civil rights for the Anti-Defamation League.

Mr. Alter declined to comment on Thursday, but told The New York Law Journal in October that his nomination appeared to have run into trouble because of “certain false attributions” to him of statements that he denied making.

The Washington Blade had earlier reported that Mr. Alter, while working for the Anti-Defamation League, was quoted in a news service article as recommending against merchants using “Merry Christmas” instead of a more generic greeting and in remarks in a magazine suggesting the group favored legal challenges to the use of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mr. Alter told The Law Journal: “Neither of the quotations attributed to me are accurate or in any way reflect my personal reviews.”