Gay Romney Supporter Patrick McHenry (R-NC) Finally Confronted Publicly About His Connection To Jason Robert Drake

McHenry "associate" Jason Robert Drake (RIP)

I hope you're not surprised that all the GOP closet cases-- well, not whack job Trent Franks, but the rest of them-- have endorsed Mitt Romney. I mean, last time around his campaign co-chair, Larry Craig, was working the public toilets for his boy Willard. There's just something about Romney that the Republican closet queens, from Lindsey Graham to David Dreier, just love.

Take fire-breathing little Patrick McHenry, for example. McHenry, who obsessively fingers the wedding ring symbolizing the fake marriage to a woman he doesn't live with, styles himself the biggest, baddest right-wing fanatic in the whole wide world. "I'll be the example for everyone else in Congress to follow," he has bragged. He was the attack dog against Elizabeth Warrenthe Republicans unleashed lamely at the House Financial Services Committee-- you know, the committee where little McHenry is trying to prevent a bill to prohibit Members of Congress from engaging in insider trading. But how much of a conservative is McHenry really, to have been one of the first right-wing congressmen to kick Newt, Perry, Bachmann, Cain et al. to the curb and jump aboard the Romney Express? Must be the animal magnetism... or McHenry's uncanny ability to always go where the cash is.

Today was an interesting day for Lil' Patrick McHenry. At noon he had a faux-townhall meeting at the Stanley Town Hall in Gaston County-- having invited no one but town employees and his own staffers. His Republican primary opponent, the intrepid Ken Fortenberry, showed up as well. McHenry wasn't prepared for that, especially not when Fortenberry started peppering him with questions about his shady record on the House Financial Services Committee and when he challenged him to debate in every county in North Carolina's sprawling 10th District so that Republican voters there could get to know each of them. McHenry dodged and demurred. But then it got really interesting.

I hate to do this to you, but it would really help if you could surf over to this 2007 post about McHenry's involvement in a triple gay homocide-suicide. Short version: The murdered gay Republicans include Ralph Reed's purported ex-lover, Ralph Gonzalez (former head of the rabidly homophobic Georgia Republican Party), GOP lobbyist David Abrami and McHenry guy-pal Robert Drake, allegedly the shooter. All three were victims in a murder-suicide in an Orlando apartment. According to right-wing website the North Carolina Conservative, "All three men were active in Republican politics." They mention that Drake is "an associate" of McHenry's but don't define that. He is alleged to be an associate of quite a few younger men, some of whom are gay and some of whom are just gay-for-pay.

Drake was associated with the owner of a gay escort service in the Virginia Beach area. The owners of that escort service-- there have been unconfirmed rumors that McHenry was both a client and a silent partner-- are facing charges that they murdered Bryan Kocis, the owner of a rival gay escort service. When I called McHenry's congressional office, the guy who answered the phone confirmed that Drake "worked" there but said he didn't know what his duties were. When I asked to speak to the congressman or someone who would know, he put me on hold, then came back, audibly upset, and said he was mistaken and that he didn't know anything and no one else was in the office and then quickly hung up on me. The murder was completely covered up by the Orlando police department and everything about it pretty much disappeared.

Now, back to today's confrontation. After Fortenberry couldn't get any answers from the smug, self-entitled McHenry to any of his questions, he whipped out a large photo of Drake-- the one above-- and asked a startled McHenry if he could deny any knowledge of the murdered ex-Marine. McHenry, looking like a rainbow flag, stammered and stuttered, said nothing intelligible and the meeting came to a screeching halt. At some point, Republicans in North Carolina are going to want to know who closet case McHenry really is and what he knows about these murders and the gay escort services in northern Virginia.

As for his endorsement of Romney... psychotic right-wing fanatic Steve Baldwin went bonkers this week on Steve Deace's crazy hate-talk radio show. His gripe is that Romney was “obsessed” with gay rights as governor of Massachusetts, and he's blaming the right-wing media itself for giving Romney a free pass. In the past he's insisted that Jeff Carneal, president of Human Events' publisher, Eagle Publishing (a subsidiary of extremist publishing house Regnery), is an “avowed homosexual” who has supported pro-equality causes. Who knows? Maybe all this stuff is why all the gay Republicans in congressional closets are supporting Romney:

Baldwin: Our conservative media won’t write negative stories about Romney. They won’t even investigate him. I’ve submitted story after story to National Review, to Human Events, to American Spectator, and every once in a while they’ll do a story with a few negative things about Romney, but a full-scale investigative piece about Romney has not appeared in most of the conservative movement’s media. And you’ll find out there’s conflicts of interests, you’ll find out National Review endorsed Romney last year, they like him this year. You’ll find out that the chairman of Regnery Gateway, that publishes Human Events, is a homosexual who likes Romney. You find out these editors have various biases. And as a result, they have collectively, along with talk radio I have to add-- Sean Hannity likes Romney, a lot of our radio talk show hosts have been very hands off when it comes to Romney’s record, even though they have all been briefed and all been given information about Romney’s background. Coulter and other national columnists and Hannity and even Mark Levin say very little about Romney’s record and refuse to dig into it. So you hear nothing from our own media, so the mainstream media, they’re too lazy to dig up the stories. And so as a result, Romney’s getting a free pass here...

Deace: Does Mitt Romney have a history of supporting homosexual issues beyond the gay scoutmasters thing that we saw from 1994? What did he do in Massachusetts when he was governor?

Baldwin: Oh my goodness. Gay proclamations, gay dances, gay proms, gay assemblies, gay this, gay that. He had an entire commission called the Governor’s Commission, which served at his own discretion, and they funded gay events and programs in the schools. He promoted all kinds of laws, rules, internal, a lot of internal things, like his department of social services awarded Family of the Year, Parents of the Year, to a gay couple. He appointed homosexual leaders to key positions throughout his administration. I mean, his whole administration was characterized by an almost obsessive devotion to the homosexual agenda. I would venture to say that Mitt Romney was the most aggressive pro-gay governor in American history, either party. Period. I mean Amy Contrada wrote a thousand page book documenting hundreds of actions by this man to advance the homosexual agenda. Hundreds. He was obsessed with it. You gotta start wondering here.

Par for the course, the Gaston Gazette was too freaked out to mention anything about Drake in their coverage of the townhall today. What else is new? Mostly boring video... but watch at 13:05: