Is the GOP Being Undone by a Gay Fifth Column?

The GOP's relationship with its own gay members remains fascinating.

One side of the equation -- homosexuals who support the GOP's small-government economic agenda despite the party's big-government, anti-gay social agenda -- is examined on the front page of Sunday's New York Times. (And for those of us who live in Washington, has been an interesting, ongoing spectacle for years.)

The other side of the equation will be fascinating to watch, as the socially conservative GOP base has to start coming to terms with the fact that there are gays in the upper reaches of the party's leadership. Will the party's faithful turn out in droves to return a party to Washington that has been so infiltrated?

One way this is playing out is the suggestion making the rounds that the GOP has been or is being betrayed in the Foley scandal by some sort of gay cabal. From Sunday's Times:

Conservative blogs and Web sites pointed out that gay staff members played principal roles in investigating the Foley case, suggesting that the party was betrayed by gay men trying to hide misconduct by one of their own.

One of my otherwise reasonable (and not homophobic) Republican friends put it to me that he does not he does not believe former Foley staffer Kirk Fordham's statement that he warned the speaker's office about Foley's behavior because Fordham was known as a big wheel among the clique of senior, gay Republican staffers. I can only assume the revelation from Friday's Post that a second, anonymous, staffer backs up Fordham would be dismissed as more from the so-called "Velvet Mafia."

Let's examine the logic. Here are a group of people who not only have chosen to align themselves with a party which is often aggressively hostile to them, but they have decided to make a career out of it. In other words, the GOP took priority over the issues surrounding their sexuality. As career staffers, they have a lot to lose if the GOP lose control of the House and/or Senate. And it does not take a brain surgeon to know that (a) covering up for Foley or (b) lying about what the GOP leadership knew could have disastrous results for the GOP congressional majorities.

But the gay-conspiracy theorists would have us believe that these gay staffers have collectively chosen this moment to decide that their homosexuality is more important than their careers and the professional lives they have spent years building.

Not what you'd call a logical supposition, is it?