Satan's in the Stall Beside Me
The demise of mountain state Republican Senator Larry Craig amuses those of us who enjoy watching right-wing heroes crash to the ground, spiked on their own hypocrisy. It further confirms my theory: prick any conservative and the kink oozes out. The rockier the rib, the more likely you'll find pink lingerie under the trousers or a bullwhip and manacles in the bedside drawer. You can bet those Beltway dominatrices, madams and escorts (gay and straight) have been able to buy second homes -- maybe even in Sun Valley! -- with their haul during W's reign.
However, because we are people of compassion, we should also feel a little horrified by this tortured man's sad, humiliating demise. He's obviously lived his whole life afflicted by the religious psychobabble and outright bigotry of people who say homosexuality is a sickness and a lifestyle decision instead of an innate state of being that has nothing to do with illness or choice.
The sickness, of course, is in the suppression, which is why closeted men seek love in rank public bathroom stalls.
The Republican Party got Bush re-elected in 2004 by playing the homophobe card. In Ohio, their minions went door-to-door in Amish country and warned the historically non-secular inhabitants that if they didn't get out and register Republican, gay marriage would be the law of the land. Tens of thousands of Amish men and women hitched horses to buggies, cracked their whips, and raced to the nearest polling place to vote to repel the Sodomites. With their unprecedented help, Ohio, that crucial state, slid ever so narrowly into the red column, sending the Bush regime back to the White House with four more years to plot how to bomb Tehran.
The trouble with this wedge issue, as everyone now knows, is that it's Republican suicide. The hateful public stance of the party has driven its many gay members into ever more contorted acts of self-loathing excess, driving the disease of suppression out in the open and subjecting men to public stoning by their own frenzied followers.
Foley, Haggard and Craig are only the most famous. There's Florida Rep. Bob Allen, also caught lurking for sex in a public bathroom, Corporal Matt Sanchez, gay porn star and -- for a shining moment -- Fox News channel's right wing Marine of the moment. And who can forget Jeff Gannon, the right-wing faux journalist with a secret life as a gay escort favored with a hard (yes!) White House press pass by the Bush administration communications department.
Yesterday, Republicans were sprinting away from shiny-shod, crisply cuffed mountain man Larry. Craig "represents the Republican Party," Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, said. You got that right, Pete! And then: "I think it's important for Republicans to step out right now and say, 'No, this behavior is not going to be tolerated.'"
"Tolerated." Now there's a word Republicans should meditate on for a long moment.
When I was covering Capitol Hill just before Clinton's impeachment, every other young, spiffily manicured male staffer I met in Republican Congressional offices was at least androcentric, if not obviously gay. I don't have a sensitive gay-dar, but there was something about them. Ties never askew, hair immaculately groomed, cuffs gleaming, they usually knew more about my shoes than I did.
Bill Clinton's voracious heterosexuality had as much to do with drawing their rabid hatred as any of his other attributes. He loved women too much, and if only he'd given equal time and effort to seducing those beautiful men, he might have saved himself some trouble.
Republicans in Washington know there are probably more gay men in their ranks than there are on Castro Street.
Still, against all logic and sense, they won't utter a word about tolerance.
It's time for Republicans to embrace their own gay wing and stop fueling the sickness of suppression that drives men like Larry Craig into airport bathroom stalls. Until they do, they're headed straight for the toilet with him -- not that they shouldn't jump right in anyway.
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Some republican gay men think they are doing the right thing in linking up with the right. They reason that they are not ONLY gay so it justifies their keeping it quiet or hidden so they can push forward other agendas. My thinking is in line with the author above, suppression is the sickness. It is a trap that I am sure we have not seen the last republican with his foot in.
I feel compassion for that poor little frumpy wife by his side, although She probably just wants the material perks.
Well Repugs are well known now for intellectual dishonesty and rampant hypocrisy. They are stuck and bedeviled by their own political greed, at any cost and no matter who pays whatever price will be paid, even death. This is truly a party of sick people, of haters who tear down, not build peoples lives.
The rampant homophobia that is the sum and substance of the Rethug party and their enablers, the evangelical fundies and the Catholic fundies are without parallel and truly reminiscent of southern slavery, even yet a core part of the neo-confederate lifestyle and mindset throughout the south of today.
Truly hate is the name of THEIR game.
It is great to watch him fall from grace so quickly and permanently from his position in his party. Under ordinary circumstances I would be blaming his fall on the laws of our country which do not offer equal rights to gays and lesbians. I would be blaming his fall on the anti-gay rhetoric that the republican leaders encourage and cultivate in their constituents. I would be blaming the republican congress for propagating anti-gay sentiment. Under ordinary circumstances I would see him as a victim of bias, prejudice, hatred, fear and ignorance. But these are not ordinary circumstances. His fall is 100% his own doing. He took a leadership role in his own demise.
He's a republican Kapo - - a self loathing gay man who so thoroughly despises himself that he joined the enemy to protect his identity. He clawed his way to the top by pushing anti-gay legislation and beating up on his fellow gay Americans. His is a selfish man who doesn’t care how many lives his self- loathing impacts, starting with the woman he deceived into marrying him, the children he lied to and the friends he conned.
With regard to his anguish, I am thrilled. It is a pleasure to see him squirm. I can only imagine how embarrassed and ashamed he is, and I am relishing every moment of it. I hope that he finds no solace.
His closet now has a light in it. Enjoy.
My, my, my. All this invective. You know what really galls me? Every time someone like Larry Craig gets caught with his pants down (pun intended) the rest of us gays get dragged out, like the circus side-show freaks, to be paraded around as an example of what a good gay is like. Never have I anywhere in any newspaper I've read in my 63 years of life heard the term good heterosexual or bad hetersexual used as a descriptive term for someone arrested for sexual misconduct.
Clinton certainly had his bacon grilled over his indescretions with Monica Lewinski, but I never heard of him referred to as a self hating heterosexual, or a deviant heterosexual, or perverted heterosexual.
Can you begin to imagine how your use of the word gay in your tirades comes across as a slap across the face of every gay person who reads it? Perhaps you should consider two very simple rules for dealing with gays, such as I:
Rule one: I am a human being.
Rule two: I am a sexual being.
If you have a problem dealing with rule number two, please refer to rule number one.
They gave a standing ovation to Vitter, who was into diapers and dominatrices. Guess just being a guy that buys sex and kink, and cheats on his wife, but heterosexual, is much better than being a gay man.
Strange group, those Repub cons.
Will someone please give Bush a blow job, so we can run him out of office too?
Larry Craig is in denial about being gay, at least bi=sexual. Anyone who enjoys sex with a same sex person is homosexual. Because of his party's hateful stance, it is doubly hard for Senator Craig to accept and embrace his true self. I feel sadness for his family, but to use a phrase from the book that they quote so freely, {Be sure that your sins will find you out.)or in a more modern setting, Karma-What you send out comes back to you, be it good or evil.
WE'D BETTER WATCH OHIO AND FLORIDA IN THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION..
WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO FACTS/TRUT
"When I was covering Capitol Hill just before Clinton's impeachment, every other young, spiffily manicured male staffer I met in Republican Congressional offices was at least androcentric, if not obviously gay. I don't have a sensitive gay-dar, but there was something about them. Ties never askew, hair immaculately groomed, cuffs gleaming, they usually knew more about my shoes than I did."
ANYWHERE ELSE, THAT ***WOULD*** BE GAY...
With younger Republicans, it's just the dress code, I think. (Though come to think of it, maybe their obsession WITH dress codes stems ultimately from repressed homoeroticism. Hmmmmmmm..
Sorry, my compassion ran out long a go. We were governed by so-called compassionate Christian conservatives. They proved they have no compassion for the human dignity others, their pro-war stance and rich person first attitude is wholly unchristian, and their spend thrift budgets are as conservative as Liberace.
Now, the people at the forefront of the anti-gay movement are one-by-one getting caught having gay sex. Some of them in public!
In the words of the people who denounce AIDS patients as perverts, "These people are getting exactly what they deserve."
Great column, Nina, with one glaring (and somewhat offensive) exception:
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Bill Clinton's voracious heterosexuality had as much to do with drawing their rabid hatred as any of his other attributes. He loved women too much, and if only he'd given equal time and effort to seducing those beautiful men, he might have saved himself some trouble.
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Huh?!?!?
This is WAYYYYYYYYYYY off base. As a gay liberal I am not a big fan of Republicans in general, much less gay Republican
Since when? Many of the gay staffers on the Hill WORK for uber-heterosexual, philandering politicians! Say what you will about the personality quirks/traits that lead certain gay men to join the GOP, an enmity toward "voraciously heterosexual" male politicians is clearly not one of them.
You go on to suggest that gay Republican
This troubling and wrong-headed paragraph seriously mars what was otherwise a good assessment of the Craig trainwreck.
GOP = Got Old Perverts?
Gruesome Old Perverts
Grand Old Perverts
Gaul Of Perverts
etc. etc. etc.
As a San Francisco city girl, something about this case doesn't smell right.
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Posted August 30, 2007 | 10:10 AM (EST)