THE GOP PROBLEM WITH CLOSET CASES: VIRULENTLY HOMOPHOBIC & DESPERATE POLITICIANS WHO MOLEST YOUNG BOYS

I would guess that the VAST majority of Americans of all religious and all political persuasions, and of all sexual orientations, are horrified, if not shocked, by the serial scandals in the Catholic Church of systematic molestation, followed by institutional coverup, of young boys by mentally ill predatory priests. These priests were severely repressed homosexuals driven to child molestation by institutions that demand that they never express their sexuality and that they look at themselves as cursed and afflicted. These predator priests have been victimized by a malevolent and primitive Roman Catholic Church obsessed with homosexuality. Similarly the Republican Party has been victimizing homosexuals in it's ranks. A stretch? Not at all. Homosexuality is so anathema within the ranks of today's GOP that gays within the party overwhelmingly hide their preferences and stay in the closet, often LEADING anti-gay crusades either to cover up their own repressed desires or through self-loathing. The ones who "come out," are either outed by someone else, like Congressmen Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and Steve Gunderson (R-WI) or caught in the act of furtive sex like Congressmen Ed Schrock (R-VA) and Robert Bauman (R-MD). Most gay Republican politicians cower in the closet-- like David Dreier (R-CA), Mark Foley (R-FL), and Jim McCrery (R-LA)-- doing whatever they can to publicly deny their homosexuality. Most of them are not "normal homosexuals" who have healthy consensual relationships with other gay men but are the types caught with young boys in public toilets. And usually the louder and shriller the anti-gay rhetoric you hear, the more perverted the Republican yelling them. Look at Republican activist Steve Wilsey of Dobson's fascistic Focus on the Family. Wilsey was a Focus on the Family's youth counselor and a man who was considered a mentor to kids. He was convicted Dec. 19 of one count of "sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust." The judgment came after prosecutors charged Wilsey with molesting an 8-year-old boy--the son of another Focus On the Family employee--over a period of 16 months. GOP activist/anti-gay crusader "Reverend" Stephen White was arrested for soliciting sex from a teenage boy in a Philly suburb. Republican state representative Brent Parker was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer posing as a male prostitute. A couple of weeks ago Hawaii Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child. Remember G Harrold Carswell, the judge who Nixon tried to force onto the U.S. Supreme Court but who was defeated by Senate Democrats? He was arrested for making a pass at an undercover cop in a public men's room at a Tallahassee, Florida, shopping mall. Republican pols Howard Brooks (a 61-year old aide to California GOP Assembyman Phil Wyman) and Andrew Buhr of Missouri were recently charged with molesting 12 and 13 year old boys and Maine Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty last month to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.

One of these cases is now in the public eye. A GOP heavyweight in Washington state, a loud-mouthed Republican pol who to a great extent actually made his career based on his vicious homophobia, has been caught molesting young boys. Jim West is currently the Mayor of Spokane. But for 25 years West has used his positions of authority-- as a sheriff's deputy, Boy Scout leader and powerful politician – to lure young boys into his web. It looks like West was one of the typical Republican closet cases who desperately tried to show the world how aggressively homophobic he was to try to prove he wasn't gay. West wasn't just another two-bit Republican pol; he was the Washington State Senate leader and one of the most powerful GOP leaders in the Northwest. So how homophobic was West (while he was molesting underage boys)? Early in 1986, West introduced a bill to bar gays and lesbians from working in schools, daycare centers and some state agencies. The bill called for firing state workers whose sexual identities became known. That same year he voted to bar the state from distributing pamphlets telling people how to protect themselves from AIDS during sex. Needless to say he vigorously opposed every gay rights bill that ever came up and, of course voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. In 2003, as Senate majority leader, he bottled up a gay rights bill in committee, where it died. Once he became Mayor of Spokane he opposed giving benefits to domestic partners of City Hall workers but was beaten with a veto-proof majority on the City Council. Jim West is a sick cookie, a sick Republican cookie.

Yesterday the FBI raided his home and confiscated his computer and other records as part of an on-going Federal Investigation into corruption allegations. West has been using his office to offer City Hall jobs to young men he met in gay online chat rooms. The FBI obtained the federal warrant to search West's home after convincing a federal judge there was probable cause to believe a federal crime had been committed. The warrant said there was sufficient evidence to believe that West "knowingly and willingly engaged in a scheme to entice others to engage in sexual activity with him through offers and grants of city of Spokane jobs, internships or appointments." West's secret life started unraveling in May when a local newspaper, The Spokesman-Review, started publishing the details of a thorough investigation into the Republican politician's double-life. His well-documented crimes against young boys go back into the 1970's when he was a deputy sheriff and a Boy Scout leader. West, who is clearly delusional, refuses to resign and is fighting a recall drive, does acknowledge using "poor judgment," but denies doing anything illegal. Nothing illegal? Does this sound legal to you? West and the members of the Pac NW Pedophile clan have been accused of using an at risk boys camp, Morning Star Boys Ranch, of which West is on the Board of Directors, as a kind of library to check out young boys for camping trips and hiking. It is alleged that during these trips the clan molested the young men. West, who resigned last week from the boys ranch Board of Directors, admits he "vaguely remembers" that he "maybe took one kid on a hike or camping trip once."

West, typical of the kind of cornered-rat-Republican on getting caught, is playing as if HE is the victim. After strenuously denying everything, he's now starting to crack and this horribly vicious, hate-filled homophobe who has used a career in public office to try to destroy the lives of innocent gay men and women, now tries to say he is being attacked because he is gay! "I'm being destroyed because I am a gay man, which is fine," this vicious right-wing child-molester/blowhard whined. Recently West lashed out against "sex Nazis" who try to regulate private sexual behavior, so deluded that he fails to recognize that he built his whole career on exactly that! "Because I am a gay man, because of this double life, it has been hell." My heart is not breaking for Jim West as more and more of his victims are coming forth to testify against his deprecations. By the time Bush and the Republicans are swept out of government we're going to have to build a new super-prison just to house the Republican politicians caught up in a culture of arrogant corruption and abuse of power beyond anything ever seen in this country before.