TODAY'S WORD: HYPOCRISY

With all the hubbub over Idaho Republican Larry Wide Stance Craig's decision to remain in the U.S. Senate-- despite shrieking and rending of clothes by other GOP senatorial closet queens, particularly Mitch McConnell (R-KY)-- lost are the outrages that are being committed against other gay Republicans claiming to be straight while trawling public restrooms for sex with anonymous men. As you know, a prominent Louisiana Republican pol, Joey DiFatta was forced to withdraw from his race for the state senate after his amorous activities in Mervyns and Dillards restrooms were exposed this week. Like Senator Craig, he says he's not gay but was withdrawing because of a "heightened enzyme problem." Even worse is the treatment poor Bob Allen has been receiving at the hands of his Republican brethren in the Florida legislature.

Like Craig, he was attempting to have sex with an undercover cop in a public restroom and, like Craig, he refuses to resign. And, like Craig again, he has been stripped of his committee assignments and shunned by his colleagues. In fact Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio (another right-wing GOP pol who has been taking plenty of dough from boy band pervert Lou Pearlman) is making him sit in the bad seats-- way in the back with the freshmen Democrats!

And if this wasn't enough to drive anyone to despair, another indignity was heaped on poor Rep. Allen's head last week. The Palm Beach Post reported that the joint where all the legislators go for chow, Andrew’s Capital Grill & Bar next door the statehouse, "removed the gorgonzola burger from its menu." The gorgonzola burger had been named in honor of the chronically over-eating Rep. Allen.

Many of the Florida lawmakers say that Allen's crime-- "he offered an undercover officer $20 and oral sex"-- was just "too shocking" for them to forgive and forget. "If it was almost any other misdemeanor, he would have been welcomed back to serve without any problem,” said Rep. Jack Seiler. “But because of the shocking nature, it’s like he was presumed guilty until proven innocent.”

And that brings us to today's word: "hypocrisy." You know, Larry Craig is hardly the first Republican elected to serve in Congress who has been a bit of an anti-gay demagogue by day in the legislature-- and back home among the voters-- and then went sneaking around in the darkness of night looking for sex with other males. It's a major part of the Republican congressional subculture in Washington and there are always at least a dozen closet queens in the GOP caucus who everybody knows about ("everybody" except, of course, the voters).

Just in my lifetime alone-- and even before Republican child predator Mark Foley (R-FL) was caught trying to break into the dormitory used by young male congressional pages (usually the sons of wealthy GOP campaign contributors)-- quite a few right-wing hypocrites were forced out of the closet and then out of Congress. I'm finishing up a fascinating autobiography by former Republican congressman/American Conservative Union founder and president Bob Bauman (R-MD), The Gentleman From Maryland: The Conscience of A Gay Conservative. The book is spectacular and Bauman has come a very long way from when he was a self-loathing, denier who voted against gays while sneaking out of his marital bed to troll for quickie sex with other males in the shadows of the Capitol. He was outed in 1980, shunned by many of his Republican colleagues who had looked up to him as a far right leader, and lost his bid for re-election. The following year an even more curious case came to the attention if the public, again involving a far right wing kook. This one, Jon Hinson (R-MS) was an employee of ex-cheerleader/Congressman Thad Cochran and when Cochran went to the Senate, Hinson was elected to his old congressional seat-- but not before admitting that he had been arrested while in Cochran's employ for wiggling his waggle at an undercover cop he was trying to seduce. Being a Republican he naturally denied he was gay, blamed it on booze, married some poor woman, asked for forgiveness and won his election. After the election-- but just months after Bauman's very public disgrace-- Hinson was at it again: arrested for "attempted oral sodomy." This time even Mississipians were not going to be taken in-- and, besides, he broke two very important Mississippi closet case taboos: he was the blower, not the blowee, and the color of the penis he was trying to swallow was black. He checked into a hospital but was pressured into resigning 2 months later. (A Democrat, Wayne Dowdy, won the special election to replace him.) Hinson later died of AIDS-- as did 9-term Connecticut Republican Stewart McKinney. In 1987 Republican neo-nazi Bob Dornan publicly outed colleague Steve Gunderson (R-WI) on the floor of the House, bringing his career to an end. And my good friend, blogger/activist Mike Rogers outed rabid congressional homo-homophobe Ed Schrock in 2004. Shrock, denying everything, decided he needed to spend more time with his family and resigned from Congress.

Today we have, at minimum, 3 closeted homophobes in the Senate-- Craig, Lindsey Graham and Miss McConnell (with plenty of rumors about the 2 former cheerleaders from Mississippi)-- and God knows how many in the House. Barney Frank, an openly gay Democrat, estimates that there are at least 10 GOP closet cases in the House, even more than DWT knows about (David Dreier, Jim McCrery, Adrian Smith, Patrick McHenry, Phil English, Denny Hastert, Dana Rohrabacher). And like Barney told Bill Maher when some Republican panelist objected indignantly, saying "That fact that there are gay Republicans? Is that a crime?"-- "No, but it would be if Republicans had their way... the right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy. People who want to demonize other people shouldn't be able to then go home and close the door and do it themselves." Watch the clip (from last year):



Today Jonathan Zimmerman has penned an interesting and worthy thought piece for the Baltimore Sun, Purging Larry Craig-- and praising him for not resigning. "Shaming Mr. Craig out of office for his alleged homosexuality," which is what Republicans in the Senate are trying, very, very hard to do, "would echo some of the worst chapters of American history. And we should all be ashamed about it."

If you think otherwise, step back in time to the summer of 1950. That's when a Senate subcommittee conducted an investigation of "homosexuals and other sex perverts" in the federal government, especially in the State Department. Over the next three years, nearly 300 State Department employees would be fired or forced to resign because of alleged homosexuality.

How could you tell if someone was gay? It wasn't easy. One investigator reported that a male worker had a "jelly hand shake," while another suspect had a "feminine complexion" and a "peculiar girlish walk." A woman drew accusations of lesbianism when a co-worker noted her "mannish voice" and "odd-shaped lips."

Similar witch hunts occurred across the federal government, often connecting homosexuality to political subversion. When the government dismissed nearly 1,500 workers as security risks in 1953, famed red-baiter Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy boasted that 90 percent of the fired employees were "communists or perverts."

To make matters worse, state governments conducted their own purges.

In Florida, the board of education revoked licenses of 64 allegedly gay teachers. "Homosexuality is not an illness like chickenpox-- you cannot see it by looking to another person's face," the state superintendent warned. "The presence of even one homosexual teacher in our schools is not to be tolerated."

Craig is hardly a fighter for gay civil rights-- at least not yet. Both Bauman and Hinson became gay activists after their political careers were cut short. Zimmerman points at hypocrites like McCain and Romney who are demanding Craig resign and disappear because his actions were, "unbecoming" and "inappropriate." Zimmerman points to the absurdity of that position because both Bush and Cheney have been convicted of drunk driving. "But to the Republicans, apparently, a sleazy bathroom cruiser puts more people at risk than a drunken driver does."

I called Senator Craig's office, identified myself and suggested a plan for redemption that would involve coming clean about being gay, apologizing for his homophobic past and living out the remaining year of his term trying to right the wrongs he has done. The staffer asked me if I didn't think I had already done the senator enough harm... and hung up. It's a shame because eventually he will have to face himself and come to terms with who and what he is. Bauman did it and writes about it very eloquently and convincingly in his book, which I strongly recommend. Zimmerman insists we all should come to Craig's defense now.

[I]f you believe in gay rights without coming to Larry Craig's defense, you're every bit the hypocrite that he is. It matters little that Mr. Craig has taken anti-gay positions, or even that he denies being homosexual. Nobody should be hounded out of government just because we think he's gay. And that means nobody: not you, not me, and not a conservative Republican senator from Idaho. Anything less would compromise our best principles and repeat our worst history.

UPDATE: ON THE OTHER HAND...

Will these out of control, mentally unbalanced, hate-filled Republicans-- who even hate themselves ever stop? (Pam has some of the crucial details-- for those with the strong stomachs).