Grandfather Barkingturtle wrote:
How's that odd to you? You think being gay isn't going to hurt a pubbie canditate when the party istelf creates wedge issues such as marital sanctity being threatened by same-sex weddings?
It's odd becuase it's not the Conservatives who are making a big deal out of gays in the Republican party. It's the Liberals. It's funny because the assumptions that many Liberals have are being shown to be incredibly false, but instead of realizing that, they keep going forward as if maybe if they can push the "Gays are in the Republican party!" statement hard enough, they'll eventually get the right wing to do "something". I'm kinda seeing it go like this:
LWNJ (left wing nut jobs): Hey! Look that the Congressman Foley. He was flirting with male pages!!!
RW (right wing): Ok. Yeah. He really shouldn't do that because pages shouldn't be subject to sexual advances by Congressmen. We'll take steps to prevent that kind of stuff.
LWNJ: Um... But that means Foley was GAY! See. He's a man. And the pages were male...
RW; Your point?
LWNJ: But. Doesn't that get the religious right outraged?
RW: Because he's gay? Um... This is the 21st century you know.
LWNJ: But he's Gaaaaayyyyy... And I'll bet there are other gay guys in the Republican party that you don't even know about.
RW: Yeah. Probably. We really don't care though.
LWNJ: No. I'm sure you're just saying that. We know that you guys really secretly hate gays.
RW: Um. Whatever floats your boat. Shouldn't we be concentrating on things that matter, like the economy or war in Iraq?
LWNJ: Hey. Look. We found some more in the closet gay guys in your party!
RW: Well, that was pretty rude of you. Most people respect the decision of gay folks to be in the closet if they want.
LWNJ: Ah. So you're upset that they're gay. We knew it!!!
RW: No. We just think you guys are morons is all....
Dunno. Something like that anyway.
Quote:
As far as your best guesses as to what would occur if the tables were turned and dems were being dragged kicking and creaming out of the closet, I would propose that would be impossible to predict because democrat gays are comfortable with their alternate lifestyle and have already come out.
Ah. You know that? Or you just assume that?
See this is what I'm really trying to get you to understand. There's this assumption that the "left" is "good for gays" and the right isn't. And so, no one on the Left would feel the need to stay in the closet, while those on the right do so out of fear of their own party or something.
This is the assumption this blogger is operating on. I think he's wrong. I know for a fact that not all gay people define themselves by their sexuality. Not all of them choose their political affiliation based on which one *seems* more gay friendly. And finally, not all gay people feel that the agenda of the Left is the direction gay folks really need to go in.
The core assumption is that the agenda of the Right is automatically anti-gay. Thus, anyone who's gay and Conservative, must be either supressing his own gayness, or being forced to conceal it for some reason. But that only follows if you assume that agenda of the Left is the only valid one that gay people might choose to follow. Guess what? Not every gay person believes in gay marriage. Not every gay person wants "special rights". In fact, I'd argue that most gay people just want to live their lives without anyone giving any special notice to the fact that they're gay. And I'd imagine a strong reason for many gays to stay in the closet, especially one's involved in politics, is because if they come out, they become "the gay politician", and they're going to be expected to have specific positions on issues that they may not particularly agree with or want to get involved with in the first place.
Ever consider that gay politicians may want to push agendas on economics? Or the environment? But if they're openly gay, guess what? They're roped into every gay issue. They're roped into every gay function.
My issue with this whole thing is that it derives from incredibly flawed assumptions about why people do what they do. You can argue that it's just this one blogger, but my arguement is that while many people might not do exactly what he's doing, the core assumptions he's acting on *are* held by many people on the left. At least, I haven't seen anyone on the left condemn him for it yet...
Quote:
Outting gay pubbies is as valid a strategy as saying dems are soft on terror, perhaps even moreso, because at least dems are supposed to be limp-wristed.
Really? But I thought it wasn't a "strategy". Just one blogger, right?
Edited, Oct 13th 2006 at 6:22pm PDT by gbaji