There were two significant developments on the gay marriage issue this week. New Hampshire’s conservative Democratic governor, John Lynch, signed legislation that authorizes same-sex marriages in that state, which brings the number of states where it’s been legalized to six. Former vice president Dick Cheney also said he supports gay marriage as long as it is made legal at the state government level.
Neither development should have been a massive surprise. New Hampshire’s legislators had been debating the gay marriage bill for some time and Cheney does have a lesbian daughter.
“I think that freedom means freedom for everyone,” Cheney said. “As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family.”
Cheney has been a popular figure among conservative Republicans because of his outspoken advocacy of such torture methods as waterboarding. I have some conservative acquaintances who have expressed the desire that he run for president in 2012.
But for some people in the GOP’s Christianist wing, this was a bridge too far, one step too many.
Here are some of the comments I found on leading conservative websites about Cheney’s gay marriage statement (you can find others here and here if you’d care to look):
“A marriage is between a male and a female. You cannot marry a male and male electrical plug, or a female and female piece of garden hose, You can get some electrical tape and make it work, just as they can get a strap on, and imitate sex, but it isn’t a marriage.”
“Homosexual sodomy is a crime. Merely because morally bankrupt legislatures removed the penalties for the acts involved does not make it less a crime. Cheny’s daughter is homosexual what do people expect the father to do or say? I feel sorry for the poor guy.”
“Even Cheney goes over to the dark side.”
“If Cheney said this he is full of crap. Since the beginning of time marriage has been between a man and a woman. Period! Just because Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian is no reason to change that interpretation. Homosexuals have had the option of civil unions that assure their legal rights. They do not have a right to have a law proclaiming their abnormal sexual behavior to be normal.”
“Cheney abandons reason and uses his power to move GOP to anti-God position which destroys our civilization’s foundations.”
“Yay, now I can marry my 12-year-old girlfriend, along with my married girlfriend, 8 other women at the same time, and a couple of really cute goats.”
I also found this question posted on one of the conservative websites that seemed to cut to the heart of the matter: “What’s his position on torture in a homosexual marriage?”
There are obviously some Republicans who have a deep-rooted hostility towards gays, which has always puzzled me for the reason that there are quite a few people of the GOP persuasion who are gay.
Here are a few examples:
Rep. Bob Bauman (R-Md.) was arrested in 1980 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old male prostitute. He lost his bid for reelection that year, which effectively ended his political career.
Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) pleaded guilty in Minnesota to misdemeanor disorderly-conduct charges stemming from his June 2007 arrest by an undercover police officer in a men’s restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
After Craig’s arrest, the Idaho Statesman ran a lengthy article on his sex life that included this paragraph: “Four gay men, willing to put their names in print and whose allegations can’t be disproved, have come forward since news of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s guilty plea. They say they had sex with Craig or that he made a sexual advance or that he paid them unusual attention.”
It was also noted that during the Clinton impeachment in 1999, Craig remarked on Meet the Press: “The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy, a naughty boy. I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.” Craig paid a $575 fine after pleading guilty and did not run for reelection.
U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona came out of the closet in 1996 when he was threatened with outing (he’s no longer a member of Congress).
Florida Congressman Mark Foley stirred up a scandal in the fall of 2006, resigning from the House in the wake of media disclosures that he was pursuing teenage male pages. During the media’s intense coverage of the Foley scandal, it came out that Kirk Fordham, who had once served as Foley’s chief of staff, was also gay, as was Robert Traynham, the director of communications for Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).
Roy Cohn, a close adviser to Sen. Joe McCarthy, was well known for his sexual proclivities before he died of AIDS in 1986.
Arthur Finkelstein was a prominent political consultant who had worked for Republican clients like North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms who were avidly opposed to gay rights and gay marriage. Finkelstein ended up marrying his male partner in Massachusetts.
Bob Allen, a Florida state legislator who had a 92 percent approval rating from the Christian Coalition and worked for the John McCain presidential campaign, was arrested on allegations that he went to a men’s room at a public park and solicited an undercover male police officer for sex.
Alan David Berlin was an aide to Pennsylvania state Sen. Jane Orie, a conservative Republican known for her tough stance on sex crimes. He was arrested recently after being accused of propositioning a 15-year-old male over the Internet. Berlin “discussed dressing up in animal costumes and engaging in various sex acts with the boy,” according to the state attorney general’s office. Investigators said Berlin was interested in having sex with the boy while wearing a furry animal costume, a practice known as “yiffing.” Orie later fired Berlin.
U.S. Rep. Ed Schrock, a Virginia Republican from Pat Robertson’s home district, dropped his reelection bid in 2004 after a website revealed that he had tried to pick up men via a gay phone dating service. Schrock had supported constitutional amendments to ban gay marriages.
Jim West, the Republican mayor of Spokane, Wash., was well known for opposing gay rights and advocating the dismissal of gay state employees and gay teachers. In 2005, the Spokane Spokesman-Review revealed that West had been trolling for male sexual partners on the internet and had allegedly abused two teenage boys who came under his care as a Boy Scout leader. West was ousted from office and later died of cancer.
Glenn Murphy, a Republican county chairman in Indiana, mysteriously stepped down as president of the Young Republican National Federation in 2007. It was later reported that he was being investigated for the alleged sexual molestation of another man after a party.
In 2005, Republican state Sen. Paul Koering of Minnesota was the only legislator of his party to vote with Democrats in opposing a floor vote on a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage. A few days afterward, Koering revealed that he was gay.
Terry Dolan, who was gay and in the closet, was head of the National Conservative Political Action Committee during the 1980s before he died of AIDS in 1986.
Then there is the rather sad story of Gary Aldridge, a friend and former employee of the late Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority. Falwell was such a staunch Republican that to this day the college he founded, Liberty University, won’t officially recognize campus organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party (Aldridge was a graduate of Liberty).
After working for Falwell, Aldridge moved to Alabama and became pastor of a Baptist Church. In the summer of 2007, police found Aldridge dead in his home. An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was “accidental mechanical asphyxia.” At the time of his death, according to the autopsy report, Aldridge’s hands and feet were tied and he was wearing two rubberized wetsuits, a scuba face mask, rubberized male underwear, diving gloves and slippers. A dildo wrapped with a condom had been inserted in his anus. The medical examiner’s report includes this forlorn notation:
“Personal Effects: One yellow metal ring intact on left ring finger, one dildo.”
While the Mark Foley scandal was raging in 2006, Mark Leibovich of the New York Times wrote this about Washington gays:
The presence of homosexuals, particularly gay men, in crucial staff positions has been an enduring if largely hidden staple of Republican life for decades, and particularly in recent years. They have played decisive roles in passing legislation, running campaigns and advancing careers.
Known in some insider slang as the Velvet Mafia or the Pink Elephants, gay Republicans tend to be less open about their sexual orientation than their Democratic counterparts. Even though the G.O.P. fashions itself as “the party of Lincoln” and a promoter of tolerance, it is perceived as hostile by many gay men and lesbians. Republicans have promoted a “traditional values” agenda, while some conservatives have turned the “radical gay subculture” into a reliable campaign villain. And there are few visible role models in the party; Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona is the only openly gay Republican in Congress.
With so many gays in the Republican Party, it seems more than a little silly to keep pushing for the prohibition of gay marriage. Reels the mind.
Leave a Reply