Can Mark Kirk (R-IL) Be Stopped-- By Republican Bigots And Extremists?

Republicans are starting to sour on GOP closet case Mark Kirk

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Mitch "Miss" McConnell (R-KY) have been working very hard to clear the Republican field in Illinois for Rep. Mark Kirk, despite all the trouble the Inside the Beltway GOP has gotten into by interfering with primary elections, especially on behalf of mainstream conservatives like Kirk when they're being challenged by far right-wing teabaggers. Why would Graham and McConnell stick their necks out for Kirk? According to another Republican candidate, Andy Martin, Kirk, like Graham and McConnell, is a closet case.

In the radio ad, which aired Monday on WGN-AM and WBBM-AM, Martin attributes a "solid rumor that Kirk is a homosexual" to conservative Republican businessman Jack Roeser. Martin's ad also claims that Raymond True, the chairman of the conservative Republican Assembly of Lake County organization, says Kirk has surrounded himself with homosexuals. The ad says Kirk should address the rumors.

Eric Elk, the campaign manager for Kirk, said in a statement that "the ad is not true and is degrading to the political process. The people of Illinois deserve better."

Pat Brady, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, issued a statement disavowing Martin's ad.

"His statements today are consistent with his history of bizarre behavior and often times hate-filled speech which has no place in the Illinois Republican Party," Brady said. "Mr. Martin will no longer be recognized as a legitimate Republican candidate by the Illinois Republican Party."

Hate-filled speech has no place in the Republican Party? Really? Yesterday I spent many hours on planes and in airports returning to L.A. from Albania. I had lots of time to re-read historian Rick Perstein's brilliant tome, Nixonland and saw that even back then Republicans sought to undermine their rivals by playing the "gay card." Henry Kissinger, then National Security Advisor, and Nixon ran foreign policy without even keeping Secretary of State William Rogers in the loop. Nevertheless, it drove Kissinger crazy that Rogers had the title, if not the power, he coveted. He did many thing to undermine Rogers including, according to Perlstein "once spreading the rumor that Rogers was a 'fag' who kept a hot, young stud in a Georgetown town house."

Later, when Nixon was eager to appoint Supreme Court judges, he engineered the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas by having FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover-- himself a closeted gay Republican-- threaten to expose Fortas as having had sex with another man. Perlstein:

And just in case Fortas still refused to quit, Hoover held additional ammunition in reserve: the dubious claim of "an active and aggressive homosexual who has been an informant in the Washington Field Office" and who "over the years has provided a great deal of reliable information" that "he had 'balled' with Abe Fortas on several occasions prior to Mr. Fortas becoming a Justice of the United States Supreme Court."

Hoover didn't need to release it. Fortas announced his resignation the morning of May 15.

Is Kirk gay? People "in the know" in DC gay circles say he is but that he was never outed because he hasn't been a hypocrite on gay issues-- or at least not a real virulent one. On April 29, 2009, for example, he voted for H.R. 1913, a hate crimes prevention act, one of only 18 Republicans to vote yes. In fact, all the other commonly well-known Republican closet cases-- David Dreier (R-CA), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Aaron Schock (R-IL) and Adrian Smith (R-NE)-- voted against the bill, opening themselves up to the hypocrisy charges often leveled at them. But it doesn't matter if Kirk is gay or not-- unless you're a teabagging bigot or a primitive religionist fanatic, a segment that makes up a substantial part of the GOP base. Or if you are working for the Navy and forced to investigate him for violations of DADT, since he's in the Naval reserves. William Rogers wasn't gay, but that didn't stop Kissinger. Fortas was a married man but he never had any children and... he played the violin. Truth doesn't get in the way in these kinds of matters; smearing someone in this manner is usually enough to accomplish the smearer's goal.

And most Republican politicians don't really care if someone is gay or not. Even when the entire GOP congressional leadership-- from Hastert to Boehner and Blunt-- were aware that Mark Foley (R-FL) was not just gay but molesting young male congressional pages, they urged him to keep running for re-election when he tried to resign, fearful that a Democrat could win the seat. Similarly, the NRSC recruited barely closeted Charlie Crist to run for the open Florida Senate seat. Much earlier, even after Mississippi Republican Congressman Jon Hinson admitted he had had engaged in inappropriate behavior with a male undercover cop at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery-- excusing himself based on alcoholism-- he was actually re-elected to his seat! It wasn't until he was arrested (in 1981) for two much bigger sins in the eyes of Republican southerners-- having sex with Black men and taking the passive role-- that he was finally forced to resign. (David Rosen's new book, Sex Scandal America-- Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming, goes into some depth about the culture of outings in Washington, DC.)

Meanwhile, teabaggers will be rallying against Kirk on Tuesday, January 5 in Woodbine, near Homer Glen, Illinois.

Champion News proudly endorses this event. We all need to spread the word near and far about the importance of stopping the gun-grabbing, cap & trading, homosexual agenda promoting, partial birth abortion advocating Mark Kirk.

It’s time for conservatives and tea partiers to get serious. If an ultra-liberal like Mark Kirk coasts through with the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate (and that’s how it’s shaping up), the conservative/tea party movement is going to look like a paper tiger.

If conservatives won’t rally to stop Mark Kirk, what battle will they join?

The good news is there are serious conservatives out there. This Will County Tea Party Alliance is made up of real doers. This is the same group that hosted America’s largest Tea Party Express Rally over the summer (over 10,000 people) in New Lenox. And over 1,000 attended their forum with the candidates for Governor on November 4th.

Now that Christmas is over, it’s time to light a fire under our conservative friends. Tell them the time for playing pretend and partying with Mark Kirk’s Log Cabin buddies is over. Illinois has enough enablers. We need Republican leaders.

The February 2nd Primary Election is just five weeks away. If conservatives won’t fight, Mark Kirk wins - by a lot. That’s a guarantee. The Will County Tea Party Alliance gets it. Now it’s time to educate the rest of Illinois.