When
news
surfaced
last
month
that
Scott
Bloch,
the
head
of
the
U.S.
Office
of
the
Special
Counsel,
had
become
the
first
Bush
administration
appointee
to
attempt
to
roll
back
longstanding
anti-discrimination
protections
for
gay
federal
workers,
gay
activists
began
to
ask,
“Who
is
Scott
Bloch?”
Bloch
drew
criticism
from
gay
rights
groups
and
several
Republican
and
Democratic
members
of
Congress
in
February
when
he
removed
from
the
OSC
Web
site
and
the
office’s
printed
documents
all
notices
stating
that
sexual
orientation
discrimination
in
the
federal
workforce
is
illegal.
OSC,
among
other
things,
is
responsible
for
protecting
federal
employees
from
job
discrimination.
To
the
dismay
of
gay
rights
attorneys,
Bloch
told
members
of
Congress
he
was
uncertain
whether
the
OSC
had
legal
authority
to
ban
sexual
orientation
discrimination
and
was
conducting
a
review
of
the
issue.
Gay
activists,
noting
that
government
officials
under
five
presidents
since
1975
determined
that
anti-gay
discrimination
against
federal
employees
was,
in
fact,
illegal,
charged
that
Bloch
appeared
to
be
injecting
his
own
anti-gay
bias
into
his
role
as
OSC
director.
Bloch,
who
was
nominated
to
the
OSC
post
by
President
Bush,
took
office
in
January,
replacing
lesbian
attorney
Elaine
Kaplan,
who
had
been
appointed
by
President
Clinton.
The
official
OSC
biography
of
Bloch
describes
him
as
an
attorney
from
Lawrence,
Kan.;
a
former
part-time
law
school
professor
at
the
University
of
Kansas;
and
the
former
deputy
director
of
the
Justice
Department’s
Task
Force
for
Faith-Based
&
Community
Initiatives.
Background
information
that
Bloch
submitted
to
a
Senate
committee
during
his
confirmation
hearing
for
his
current
job,
and
news
reports
about
him
from
a
Kansas
newspaper,
present
a
picture
of
a
devout
Catholic
and
staunch
social
conservative.
At
his
confirmation
hearing,
Bloch
introduced
his
wife
and
noted
he
has
seven
children.
His
oldest
child,
a
son,
had
recently
returned
from
Iraq,
where
he
served
in
the
Marines,
Bloch
said.
His
youngest
child,
a
daughter,
had
just
celebrated
her
first
birthday,
he
said.
On
a
Senate
disclosure
form
required
for
his
confirmation,
Bloch
lists
the
Claremont
Institute,
an
ultra-conservative
think
tank
in
California,
which
boasts
of
“fighting
the
gay
rights
movement”
as
one
of
its
mottos,
as
one
of
the
organizations
with
which
he
has
been
affiliated
as
a
research
fellow.
Bloch
has
not
returned
several
calls
from
the
Blade
seeking
an
interview.
Bloch
has
already
hired
at
least
two
religious
conservative
advocates
to
his
staff
and
offered
the
No.
2
post
at
the
OSC
to
a
college
professor
from
Wyoming
who
helped
form
an
anti-gay
campus
group.
The
professor,
Robert
Carlson
of
Casper
College,
turned
down
the
job,
saying
he
preferred
not
to
move
to
Washington.
Bloch
listed
membership
in
other
groups,
including
a
staunchly
conservative
Catholic
organization,
and
noted
that
he
helped
organize
the
opening
of
a
Catholic
monastery
in
Oklahoma.
Yet
part
of
Bloch’s
family
background
touches
on
the
world
of
early
20th
Century
expressionist
painters
as
well
as
Broadway
theater
and
TV
screenwriting
in
Hollywood,
prompting
some
observers
to
wonder
how
Bloch’s
conservative
and
possible
anti-gay
leanings
were
shaped.
According
to
an
April
2002
feature
story
about
Bloch
in
the
Lawrence,
Kan.,
newspaper
the
Journal-World,
Bloch’s
grandfather
was
a
noted
abstract
expressionist
painter
who
studied
in
Munich,
Germany,
between
1910
and
1921
as
part
of
the
internationally
acclaimed
der
Blaue
Reiter
or
“Blue
Rider”
school
of
expressionists.
The
grandfather,
Albert
Bloch,
was
born
and
raised
in
St.
Louis,
Mo.,
from
German-Jewish
immigrant
parents,
according
to
a
1997
article
on
Albert
Bloch
in
American
Art
Review
by
University
of
Kansas
Art
Professor
David
Cateforis.
The
Journal-World
article
reported
that
Bloch,
45,
was
born
in
New
York
City,
where
his
father,
Walter
Bloch,
worked
as
a
writer
for
Broadway
plays
and
New
York-based
television
shows.
At
the
age
of
3,
Scott
Bloch
moved
with
his
family
to
Los
Angeles,
where
his
father
began
work
as
a
writer
for
TV
programs
such
as
“Gilligan’s
Island,”
“Hawaii
Five-O,”
“Bonanza,”
and
“The
Flintstones.”
Former
Special
Counsel
Elaine
Kaplan
has
issued
a
statement
saying
federal
workers
are
protected
from
discrimination
based
on
sexual
orientation.
Her
replacement,
Scott
Bloch,
has
said
he
is
not
sure
and
is
reviewing
the
matter.
(Photo
by
Clint
Steib) |
The
Journal-Word
article
says
Walter
Bloch
at
some
point
changed
his
name
to
Walter
Black
“for
professional
reasons.”
Young
Scott
grew
up
as
Scott
Black,
the
article
said.
In
his
disclosure
form
submitted
to
the
Senate
Committee
on
Governmental
Affairs,
in
connection
with
his
confirmation
as
special
counsel,
Scott
Bloch
stated
he
changed
his
name
back
to
Bloch
in
1975,
at
the
age
of
17,
while
a
junior
at
William
Howard
Taft
High
School
in
the
L.A.
community
of
Woodland
Hills.
Although
the
Journal-World
article
gives
no
further
explanation
of
why
the
father
changed
his
name
from
Bloch
to
Black,
the
change
appears
to
have
occurred
in
the
1950s,
during
the
height
of
the
Hollywood
“red
scare”
period,
when
Senator
Joseph
McCarthy
(R-Wis.)
began
his
highly
publicized
investigations
into
alleged
Communist
“infiltration”
into
the
U.S.
government
as
well
as
the
Hollywood
motion
picture
industry.
Anti-Semitism,
as
well
as
prejudice
against
perceived
membership
...
