The Flagrant Sexual Hypocrisy of Conservative Republican Males

I make a point in many of my posts of highlighting the hypocrisy of Republicans who find themselves embroiled in sex related scandals for several reasons.  First, to point out that with the exception of Anthony Weiner, the scandals almost always involve Republicans, not Democrats.  Second, to underscore the hypocrisy of both those caught in the scandals, but also of those who vote for them.  These voters feign piety yet display a level of hypocrisy that would make the biblical Pharisees blush (e.g., the highest. use of Internet porn is in the Bible Belt; evangelical Christians have the highest divorce rate, etc.).  In the wake of "family values", "pro-life" Republican Tim Murphy's decision to resign his seat in Congress after being caught in an abortion scandal, a column in the New York Times offers a welcomed compilation of a number of Republican hypocrites.  Here are excerpts:

The most recent culprit in the category of anti-abortion double-think is Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who on Thursday announced he would resign from his House seat this month. Two days before, Mr. Murphy had voted for a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks on the medically dubious grounds that, at that age, a fetus can experience pain. 

Then The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published texts revealing that when Mr. Murphy’s mistress thought she was pregnant, he urged her to consider an abortion.

Sound familiar? Perhaps Mr. Murphy’s story calls to mind the Tennessee congressman Scott DesJarlais, who is similarly pro-life in the streets, pro-choice in the sheets.

In 2015, Mr. DesJarlais voted in favor of a 20-week ban, and boasted of a “100 percent pro-life voting record” while in Congress. Meanwhile, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that he supported his ex-wife’s decision to have two abortions (no word on how far along she was) and encouraged a patient with whom he was having an affair to terminate her pregnancy as well. Like Mr. Murphy, he is a co-sponsor of the abortion bill that passed on Tuesday. It’s a child, not a choice, abortion opponents tell us. Unless the pregnancy is embarrassing and super-inconvenient and an impediment to your political future, in which case it’s merely a clump of cells.
 The double standards employed by some members of the “do as I say, not as I do” Christian right are nothing new. Show me a senator who votes against gay marriage, and, at least in one infamous case, I’ll show you a guy who’s soliciting same-sex encounters in the airport men’s room. (Hello there, Larry Craig!)

Show me another Republican senator who made his name as a “pro-family advocate” and I’ll show you a guy whose phone number showed up in a Washington madam’s little black book. (Howdy, David Vitter!)

Show me the far-right speaker of the House, a man with perfect scores from the National Right to Life Committee and the Christian Coalition, and I’ll show you a guy who, as a high-school wrestling coach, set up a chair in front of the boys’ shower the better to ogle his protégés, and who was eventually jailed as a serial child molester. (Dennis Hastert, come on down!)

We’ve been down this road of duplicity before. The televangelist who prayed, alongside his wife, for the return of traditional morals, admitted to having sex with — and was accused of rape by — a 21-year-old church secretary, and found to have paid her $279,000. The congressman who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act was sexting with his underage male pages.

Scandals roll by so frequently that there is, by now, an expected script: the shocking revelation, the tearful confession, the up-from-the-ashes reinstatement plea or re-election campaign, garlanded with declarations of “God/my wife/Willie Robertson, star of ‘Duck Dynasty’ has forgiven me, why can’t you?” Perhaps the most shocking part of Mr. Murphy’s story is that he elected to quit, rather than scream “Fake news!” or sit back and wait for a new story to eclipse his hypocrisy, as Mr. DesJarlais did.

But what Mr. Murphy’s moral flexibility ultimately reveals is that, for these particular hard-line anti-abortion politicians, it’s not about fetal pain or the sanctity of life. It’s all about control — whether you’re telling a woman she can’t have an abortion, or forcing a woman to get one.

To this list we need to add former Virginia 2nd District Congressman Ed Schrock who voted anti-gay in Congress and meanwhile was seeking gay sex trysts.    Of course, there are even more than could be added to the list besides Schrock.

Republican Legislators Larger Bathroom Threat than Transgender Individuals

One of the scare tactics used by Republican legislators in Georgia and North Carolina (as well as here in Virginia) to push for passage of anti-gay and anti-transgender laws is to depict transgender women as a threat in restrooms - seemingly, no thought was given to the consequences of forcing transgender men to use women's rooms.  The irony, however, is that there are ZERO cases of transgender individuals engaging in misconduct in restrooms.  The same cannot be said for Republican legislators themselves.  A piece in Gay Star News looks at this reality that it is Republicans legislators who are the most serious threat in restrooms.  Here are highlights (check out the link to a list of Republicans involved in sexual misconduct):

[S]tatistics show no trans person arrested for sexual misconduct in a public bathroom, BUT surprise, surprise (or not?), three Republicans lawmakers had been arrested for doing very naughty things in there. Who are they?

Well the guys at Newnownext didn’t have to dig too far into recent history to find these bathroom-seeking politicians:

Back in 1981, Mississippi congressman Jon Hinson was arrested for engaging in oral sex with a male staffer in the House of Representatives bathroom.

In 2007, Idaho Republican Larry Craig was arrested in the restroom of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer.

Also in 2007, Florida state Representative Bob Allen was arrested after he agreed to give an undercover police officer $20 for oral sex in the men’s room of a public park.

Evidently, some U.S. legislators have a whole lot of homework to do before they can make better decisions with regards to what rights should be given to the people, and what rights should be controlled.

Well, since we are on the topic of hypocrisy, here’s an extensive list of the biggest sex offenders coming from the U.S. Republican Party.

Oh, and one more person to add to the list: Alabama Governor Robert Bentley.

Cuccinelli Asks Supreme Court to Uphold Virginia's Sodomy Statute

Ken Cuccinelli's gubernatorial campaign claims that Cuccinelli, a/k/a Kookinelli, is focused on jobs and issues that matter to most Virginians.  You'd never know that based on his request filed today for the U. S. Supreme Court which struck down for a second time recently by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the most conservative Circuit Court of Appeals in America (it was struck down the first time by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 that ruled a similar Texas statute to be unconstitutional).  

In his ludicrous explanation for his appeal, Kookinelli claims that the sodomy statute is key to prosecuting sex crimes even though numerous other statutes give prosecutors plenty of bases for prosecuting wrongdoers.  No what's special about the sodomy statute is that it criminalizes any form of sex that isn't engaged in via the so-called missionary position.  It is part and parcel with the Christofascist agenda that sex should never be enjoyable and certainly should never depart from their rigid - might we also say frigid if we think of sodomy statute supporter, Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation? - views that sex is only for procreation and one had better not like it.  The other reason Kookinelli lusts to keep the sodomy statute on the books is that it imposes far higher penalties on "deviant" sex crimes than the rest of the panoply of laws available to prosecutors.  Here are details from the Virginian Pilot on Kookinelli's appeal (which will no doubt send the far right crowd into near orgasms since they can't have them during sex):

Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Virginia's anti-sodomy law, arguing that a lower court misinterpreted the scope of the justices' 2003 decision invalidating a similar law in Texas.

In a 2-1 decision in March, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared that Virginia's law against oral and anal sex is unconstitutional. [The 4th Circuit also refused Kookinelli's request for a rehearing en banc]

Virginia's so-called "crimes against nature" law was the basis for a 47-year-old man's conviction of criminal solicitation for allegedly demanding oral sex from a 17-year-old girl. In the appeal, Cuccinelli claims the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision applied only to sex acts involving consenting adults, not those between an adult and a minor.

Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said she was disappointed that Cuccinelli chose to appeal the ruling.  "I think that's a waste of the state's resources," she said. "By appealing, he's trying to breathe life into a law that is clearly unconstitutional."

The appeals court's ruling came in the case of William Scott MacDonald, who was convicted of violating a Virginia law making it a felony for any adult to order a person under age 18 to commit a felony. MacDonald claimed his conviction for that offense was improper because the underlying felony was based on an unconstitutional law. The appeals court agreed.

Gastanaga said that rather than appeal the 4th Circuit's decision, Cuccinelli should work with the General Assembly to draft a constitutional law protecting older minors.

The decision to appeal is certain to provide campaign fodder for Democrats who already have accused Cuccinelli and his GOP ticket mates of pursuing an anti-gay, socially divisive agenda.

And lest we forget how virulently anti-gay Kookinelli is (despite persistent rumors that, gasp, he may have violated the sodomy statute himself in the past) , the Virginian Pilot also reports on Cuccinelli's brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the gay marriage case to be decided tomorrow.  Here are story excerpts:

Cuccinelli led a group of 19 Republican attorneys general in filing a 55-page brief with the court in late January opposing legal recognition of gay marriage. In one passage, their brief seeks to undermine the notion that if same-sex couples can be parents, they should also be legally allowed to get married:

"Responsible parenting is not a justification for same-sex couple marriage, as distinguished from recognition of any other human relationships. It is instead a rationale for eliminating marriage as government recognition of a limited set of relationships. Once the natural limits that inhere in the relationship between a man and a women can no longer sustain the definition of marriage, the conclusion that follows is that any group of adults would have an equal claim to marriage."

Kookinelli is a flaming asshole and, based on the rumors that come my way, a hypocrite.  My offer stands: If someone will come forward with reasonable proof that Kookinelli is another Ed Schrock or Larry Craig and sign a sworn affidavit affirming the information, I will happily do all I can to take his sorry ass down.  If you don't believe me, ask Ed Schrock or former "ex-gay" poster boy Michael Johnston, if you can find either of them.   All it will take is believable evidence and a detailed sworn affidavit.

 

More Outings of Closeted Gay GOP Members of Congress Coming?

I hold closeted gay elected officials who cast anti-gay votes in Congress in almost as low esteem as I do "ex-gay" charlatans who work to keep the "ex-gay" myth alive and cause untold torment and suicides in the process.  Some argue against outing elected officials whining that coming out or not is the closeted individuals decision.  I'm sorry, but these people are casting votes that harm my personal life and discriminate against me and other gays.  If the closet case cause harm to others by their votes, then in my book they have placed a huge target on their backs.  My blogger friend Mike Rogers holds similar views to mine and we worked together (I first tipped off Rogers about Schrock) to expose the hypocrisy of former Virginia GOP Congressman Ed Schrock (pictured above) who had a virulently anti-gay voting record in Congress.  Now, Rogers says he has his sights on other closet cases.  Here are details from U.S. News:

Michael Rogers, a blogger who gained fame in the early 2000s by revealing the sexual orientation of prominent politicians, has largely been dormant since President Barack Obama took office. But Rogers tells U.S. News he's gathering evidence for what could be another big revelation.

Rogers sees himself as a reporter focused on political hypocrisy, and to establish his credibility he points to a track record of accuracy and the fact that he's never been sued.

"There's a big difference between outing and reporting. I'm a reporter, I report on hypocrisy," Rogers told U.S. News. "If I have one case that's off, I'm out of the business, [but] I will never be sued for what I do because I'm right."

The blogger said he currently knows of three "anti-gay" members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are themselves gay. Rogers refused to say when he might disclose information on these members or what might provoke such a revelation, maintaining that as a journalist he holds some cards close to the vest.

But Rogers said he's about to get his hands on concrete evidence that one "anti-gay" member of the House of Representatives engages in gay sex. "Oh, it's going to happen because it has been happening for a long time," he said.

The blogger's most high-profile triumphs include the 2004 revelation that then Rep. Ed Schrock, R-Va., was leaving voicemails on a gay hook-up service, prompting the two-term congressman to retire. In October 2006 he wrote that three men informed him they had sex with then Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, in bathrooms at Union Station. Before making his allegations against Craig public, two of his three sources signed affidavits saying they would come forward if Rogers was taken to court.

In August 2007 the political and comedic worlds went wild with news that Craig had quietly pleaded guilty to charges for allegedly soliciting sex from an undercover cop in a Minnesota airport's restroom. Rogers said he was "vindicated 500 percent" after Craig's arrest was made public.

Hypocrites need to be exposed.  I have no sympathy for them.  I was in the closet for many years, but I never actively worked to harm other gays.   Towleroad also has coverage and the comments are great - I love the speculation about Eric Cantor.  Ken Cuccinelli is another one that I'd like to see outed.

Palmetto Queen, Lindsey Graham Bashes Gays

The hypocrisy of likely closeted GOP queens seems to have no limits.  A case in point, South Carolina's 57 year old,  totally not-gay, never been married U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham.   Isn't it funny how the loudest homophobes - think former Congressman Ed Schrock, former Senator Larry Craig, and of course Ted Haggard - always seem to be the ones caught soliciting or engaging in gay sex on the down-low or in public rest rooms.  A piece at The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the anti-gay bullshit spouted by the Palmetto Queen yesterday.  Here are highlights:

Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham last night used polygamy and murder to define the boundaries of the “debate” on same-sex marriage, just as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia used murder and bestiality to define the area of debate in which same-sex marriage should exist.

Invoking issues like murder, bestiality, and polygamy is offensive and wholly facetious, and ”facile,” as Piers Morgan responded. Senator Graham also blamed the media for the public’s embrace of marriage equality, and — when all was said and done — stated he believes the states should have the right to decide who marries and who does not, especially because in his home state of South Carolina, religion is the reason “we’re not going to change the definition of traditional marriage.”

Graham, who says the media paints LGBT people as funny, charming, and kind” — as if that’s problematic — says he doesn’t “hate,” he just feels “traditional marriage” is “best for society,” and challenged CNN host Piers Morgan to pass a constitutional amendment if he wants same-sex couples to be able to marry. Morgan attacked Senators Graham, McCain, and Lieberman as “unAmerican” for their views on marriage equality.

It’s time for more people to have the good sense to take the tone and approach of Princeton freshman Duncan Hosie, who this week won accolades for personally speaking  up — in the same room — to Scalia for his usage of murder, bestiality, and other inappropriate references when discussing the right of same-sex couple to civil marriage.

One can only hope that like Schrock, Craig and Haggard,  Graham will ultimately be "outed" and his rank hypocrisy exposed for all to see.

Louisiana GOP Legislator Seeks to Kill LGBT Studies Program

GOP members of state legislatures seem to look for ways to demonstrate their bigotry and the hate and intolerance that are synonymous with the Republican Party .  Besides the Texas voter ID law addressed in the prior post, here in Virginia we have Del. Bob Marshall always seeking a way to make LGBT Virginians 4th class citizens (in fact, he's admitted that he'd like to drive all gays from Virginia).  Now Louisiana offers up another example of the batshitery and extremism that predominate the GOP.  It seems that the University of Lafayette's decision to offer a minor in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies is just too much for Congressman Jeff Landry (pictured at left) - who based on folks like Ed Schrock and Larry Craig we can probably safely assume is a self-loathing closet case secretly lusting for some hot gay sex himself.  KLFY-TV 10 looks at Landry's conniption fit over the university's new offering.  Here are highlights:

A recently added minor at the University of Lafayette is causing quite a controversy. Last semester UL became the first university in Louisiana to offer a minor in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies. Today, Congressman Jeff Landry came out in opposition towards the program. 

In a letter addressed to UL's President, Dr. Joseph Savoie, Landry request that the university eliminate the new program. As a proud alumnus, Landry says he been so grateful of the education he received at UL, but he is concerned if future graduates will be able say the same. 

In the letter Landry ask the program be dropped because quote "it fails to provide an economic benefit to the participants or financial sense for the taxpayer" end quote. 

The University of Lafayette offers around 100 different minors such as African-American studies, Cajun and Creole studies, Latin American studies, and religious studies. According to President Savoie, the LGBT minor did not require budgetary allocations or divert resources from other areas. 

We can only hope that Landry gets caught demonstrating his "wide stance" or using a Mega Phone like service so that his political career can be flushed down the toilet.  

Is Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk Another Ed Schrock?

It seems that outwardly closeted, self-loathing Republicans just do not grasp the fact that if they keep voting anti-gay that sooner or later someone in gay community is going to reach such a level of anger and disgust that they will turn to the media and/or activists and "out" the politician equivalent of George Rekers. I know this for a fact - I'm the one that call Mike Rogers about former Congressman Ed Schrock who consistently voted against the interests of LGBT Americans even as he was cruising for gsy sex trysts. It seems that Illinois Congressman Make Kirk learned NOTHING from the Schrock debacle. Kirk is now the newest target of Mike Rogers - all set in motion by those who were simply fed up with Kirk's hypocrisy and disingenuousness.

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While some in the gay community argue that no one should out someone else, in cases like Schrock and Kirk I beg to differ. They have deliberately made the decision to vote in ways that harm others in the LGBT community and, therefore, deserve to be exposed for liars and hypocrites. Also, from working with Mike Rogers on the Ed Schrock story, I can personally vouch that he does NOT go off half cocked. If he says he has the goods on someone, believe me, he does. Check out the posts at BlogActive.com where Mike Rogers goes after Kirk. Even better, here are highlights from Huffington Post which will hopefully take the story national:
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Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk has had a dramatic few days, and now a popular gay blogger known for outing politicians claims to have sources confirming that Kirk is a closeted gay man.
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Before the February Illinois primary, Kirk, a Republican vying for President Obama's former senate seat, faced attacks from birther Andy Martin claiming that Kirk was gay. Kirk denied the claims, but now faces an attempted outing from the other side--the gay community.
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Activist blogger Mike Rogers tends to target politicians with antigay voting records, and "outed" Sen. Larry Craig and Rep. Mark Foley. He was also featured in the film "Outrage" where he discussed closeted politicians who work against the gay community. In a Tuesday post on Rogers' BlogActive, he explained why he decided to bring up Kirk's sexuality now:
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Until now, Mark Kirk elected not to play the typical Washington game. Instead of supporting his party's dismal record on gay rights, Kirk received Human Rights Campaign ratings of 67% in 2002, 88% in 2004, 76% in 2006 and 85% in 2008. That's more impressive than a lot of Democrats. I even let Kirk slide by when he didn't co-sponsor earlier legislation relating to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. My thoughts then were that he wasn't THAT bad on gay stuff and that the bill was going nowhere anyway.
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Though the HRC has supported Kirk in the past, the group pledged their support to Democrat Alexi Giannoulias last week after Kirk voted against the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal.
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Rogers cited several sources who contacted him following Kirk's DADT vote. Two men, whose names were not given, claimed to have had sexual relations with Kirk while he was in college.
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Frank Sennett, editor-in-chief of Time Out Chicago, interviewed Rogers about his Larry Craig outing in 2007, where the blogger explained who he chooses to out and when:

"Rogers acknowledged gay legislators don't have to support gay marriage. However, he added, 'You have to be honest with the American people that you're voting against a group you're a part of. If politicians want to say they're straight and then have sex in bathrooms [referring to Larry Craig] after voting against gay rights, that doesn't work.'
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The Kirk campaign has yet to respond to Rogers' claims.

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Kudos, Mike. Let's hope the closeted members of the GOP will get the message and stop voting against normal, out gays.

Michael Rogers and Kirby Dick on The View for OUTRAGE

While there are those who disagree with "outing" closeted politicians, I agree with Mike Rogers that when a closeted politician is actively voting for legislation that harms others in the gay community at they same time that they are themselves cruising for gay sex on the sly, they are a hypocrite and deserve to be outed. I have no use for those who would legislate aspects of my private life while wanting to keep their own "private." Former Congressman Ed Schrock is a case in point and his reprehensible hypocrisy combined with the GOP's anti-gay agenda is why I gave Mike Rogers information and put him on Schrock's trail. Hopefully, Mike will continue to expose more hypocrites like Schrock and Larry Craig.

NPR Censors Review of "Outrage"

In yet another example of how the mainstream media fails to do its job of reporting ALL the facts and then allowing readers to decide for them self, NPR - which is often better than a number of other news outlets - has censored a review of the new documentary, "Outrage," to remove the names of the closeted politicians (some of whom have already been exposed elsewhere as frauds and hypocrites). It's maddening that the media is selective in how it allows heterosexual frauds to be exposed yet applies a totally different standard to closet cases who vote anti-gay even as the seek out and solicit gay sex. What is particularly amazing is that those protected by NPR have been outed previously in various publications already. Michelangelo Signorile rightly takes NPR to task. Here are some highlights:

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The opening of Outrage put much of the media into its usual "outing" conundrum simply because they've had their heads up their asses for years when it comes to reporting on the homosexuality of public figures. Some of the media finally got it, at least to a point, while others were hopelessly lost. The New York Times named the names, while the Washington Post refused and gave some ridiculous and brutally arrogant reasoning in an otherwise bizarrely laudatory review by Dan Zak:

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"Outrage" comes down hardest on another prominent politician whose name we won't print here. Why? He has denied repeatedly that he is gay, and there has been no substantiated reports in mainstream media about any homosexual relationships or transgressions.

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In other words: "Because the subject has claimed it's not true and because we in the mainstream media have refused to investigate this legitimate story -- even though all the sourcing might be out there and has been reported in that less-than-mainstream-new-media-thing-that-is-increasingly-read-by-more-people-than-our-dead-tree-news-which-is-losing-circulation-and-we-haven't-a-clue-why --- we're not going to report it now, even though this film is pretty damn good and makes a case for why we should!"

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Don't you love how our media ushers in "privacy" these days only when it's about reporting on the very serious issue of duplicity of politicians regarding homosexuality? Or will a search not reveal that The Washington Post has reported every sordid detail about Britney Spears and what will happen if she "flakes out" again, or Lindsay Lohan's "liquid diet" rumors, not to mention Madonna's adoption problems and various other public figures' divorces, fights, weddings, pregnancies, boozing, lying, private celebrations, fighting, baby births, cheating, plastic surgeries, tax issues, designer duds, lavish parties and on and on?

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By not discussing the names of those in the film, NPR is most certainly passing judgment on homosexuality, on the filmmaker and on the public figures involved -- deeming that, if they have secret gay lives, it is the most horrible thing imaginable. They are also deciding to suppress legitimate news because of that distaste and bias.

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These are the questions that need to be answered, and they are indeed the very questions this Outrage raises. Let's hope the more of the media, having come far on this issue, takes up the debate.

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As I have said before, once a closeted politician begins voting anti-gay on legislation, they need to be exposed if only to expose their hypocrisy and the fact that they obviously are not trust worthy. If they will lie about who they are, what else will they lie about?

Washington Post Looks at "Outrage"

I have already commented on the new documentary movie "Outrage" which looks at closeted politicians with anti-gay politicians. However, all too often what blogs bring to light doesn't equate to coverage in the main stream media - which has complicity in allowing closet cases like Ed Schrock (pictured at left), David Drier and according to Outrage, Charlie Crist, remain in the closet despite numerous leads to the truth of their double lives, not to mention homophobic voting records. Former local Congressman Ed Schrock had the second most conservative voting records and made statements about the unfitness of gays to serve in the military as he himself used "Mega Phone" to find partners for gay trysts. Fortunately, due to the efforts of some locals and Mike Rogers at BlogActive.com, Schrock's hypocritical double life was exposed and ultimately his seat has come to be held by a far more gay friendly Congressman. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post (which has complicity issues of its own):

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The closet, he points out, forces those who engage in homosexual acts to lead lives of elaborate deception, to betray their spouses, to seek anonymous sex. Conservative public officials who are gay, the film argues, adopt protective camouflage by opposing any legislation -- HIV/AIDS funding, benefits for unmarried partners, same-sex marriage -- that might identify them as pro-gay: It's a tactic that sets up an interior war against their essential selves.

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"The psychology of these people who would, in exchange for a political career, lead a double life, that's almost a Shakespearean character," Dick says. This dissonance is part of what attracted him to the topic. It supplies a depth to the screen proceedings beyond mere prurience. It also adds to the director's more direct message: He wants to "advance the cause of gay rights," including same-sex marriage, he says. And, "I hope that this film contributes in some ways to the lessening and perhaps eventual demise of the closet."

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Their names were bandied about among journalists, and you could easily find them in blogs or political-circuit chatter. But the mainstream media refused to out them even though "the gay press has been writing about this for many, many years," Dick says. Informed that this newspaper's policy is to identify only self-declared homosexuals, he's perplexed and perceives a double standard. . . . The allegedly gay politicians and others he names in his film (at least five by our count) "are public officials; this is reporting on hypocrisy, and there is an obligation on the press to write about it."

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Some gay-rights supporters consider Rogers's tactics odious and invasive. Dan Gurley, who was national field director for the Republican National Committee in 2004, once called the blogger "despicable." It's easy to see why: A couple of months before the election, Rogers outed Gurley on Blogactive.com and later posted the RNC official's Gay.com dating profile. Gurley never hid being gay, but to avoid further controversy, he says, the GOP kicked him to the curb when he sought a position in the second Bush administration.

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As I have said before, I totally support outing closeted politicians who embrace anti-gay legislation and make life worse for the rest of us. They can stay in the closet if the want, but once they support anti-gay legislation, they put a bull's eye on their own backs.

Closeted Gay Republicans Hung Out to Dry

While some disagree with me, I strongly support outing closeted Republican elected officials who take anti-gay positions through legislation and public pronouncements even as they secretly troll for gay trysts. I have even passed information along to Mike Rogers and others who share my views when I hear of this type of hypocrisy. To me, it's very simple: if one wants to remain in the closet, that's fine unless and until you start taking actions that actively harm members of the LGBT community through anti-gay laws, etc. Former local Congressman Ed Schrock is a prime example of this situation. While I knew Ed Schrock from my days in the GOP, his conduct was reprehensible and he brought his downfall upon himself. He and his compatriots in the Virginia Beach delegation to the Virginia General Assembly could easily have avoided supporting a Christianist generated anti-gay jihad in Virginia, but chose not to do so. Outing anti-gay elected officials is completely proper in such situations. Now a new film, Outrage, is being released that takes an in depth look at the many closeted Republicans and describes itself as follows:

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A searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community, OUTRAGE boldly reveals the hidden lives of some of our nation’s most powerful policymakers, detailing the harm they've inflicted on millions of Americans, and the media’s complicity in keeping their secrets.

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I sincerely hope the spotlights the lies and hypocrisy of these elected officials and helps to bring home to opponents of "outing" just how much harm these individuals inflict upon the LGBT community. Here are some details from Towleroad:
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Last night I had the opportunity to see the first final cut of Outrage shown to the public, before its opening at the Tribeca Film Festival. For those who have not yet heard of Outrage, it's a documentary by Kirby Dick (This Film is Not Yet Rated) about closeted Republican hypocrites and the way their hypocrisy damages lives — not only their personal lives but the millions of gays and lesbians their homophobic policymaking affects.

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It's a well-packaged effort covering the Reagan years and the birth of the religious right to the present, wrapping up the stories of Idaho Senator Larry Craig, Virginia Rep. Ed Schrock, former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey, Mark Foley, former NYC Mayor Ed Koch, 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign manager Ed Mehlman, former GOP National Field Director Dan Gurley, former Arizona congressman Jim Kolbe, former Louisiana congressman Jim McCrery, and current congressman David Dreier, into a tightly wound exposé of closeted D.C. It's the first major piece of media which has painted such a comprehensive, unflinching look at the GOP's closet.

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The early efforts of Michelangelo Signorile in outing politicians, and the crusades of blogger Mike Rogers (blogactive) are also highlighted. . . . Dick's deft layering of audio tapes, interviews, and sexual confessions against the anti-gay votes these politicians have made reveals how journalists and the mainstream media, which the film ultimately damns for its refusal to expose hypocrisy, have been complicit in keeping public figures in the closet. . . . The film opens May 8.

Larry Craig Sponsors Federal Marriage Amendment - Update

What more needs to be said about the hypocrisy of Senator Larry Craig being a sponsor of a re-cast Federal Marriage Amendment than wht is in this "ad." Would that the GOP actually was a party of ideas and vision for the future instead of slavishly pandering to the most lunatic elements of the Christianists.

Larry Craig and David Vitter Sponsor Bill To "Protect" Marriage

The Republicans have reached new levels of hypocrisy with the re-introduction of a proposed "Federal Marriage Amendment." The re-introduction of this legislation shows to what lengths the current GOP will go in order to pander to Christianists. As the Huffington Post notes, some of the sponsors are the same old gay-hating fruit cakes, but the surprising thing is that two less than paragons of marital virtue are also sponsors: Larry Craig and David Vitter. These two jerks go beyond being shameless and certainly are not exactly the poster boys for upstanding examples of the supposed sanctity of the ‘union of a man and a woman.” But then again, the GOP has increasing come to stad for nothing except hypocrisy. Here are highlights from HuffPo:

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Just this week, a group of Republican senators re-introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, which, as we know, would ban gay marriage. This isn't especially surprising. Republicans are looking at the political landscape, and they're feeling awfully discouraged. The polls look bad, the base looks depressed, and fundraising looks iffy. Rallying the far-right troops with an anti-gay amendment to the Constitution -- even though it has no chance at even getting so much as a hearing -- might be helpful to the conservative movement.

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Most of the names are predictable -- Brownback and Inhofe, for example -- but there are two others whose names stand out: Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho). Yes, two of the principal sponsors of a constitutional amendment to "protect" marriage include one far-right Republican who hired prostitutes and another far-right Republican who was arrested for soliciting gay sex an airport men's room.

More gay men describe sexual encounters with U.S. Sen. Craig; 1982 Page scandal: Craig was named as sex partner, says lawyer of primary accuser

Things are getting even more fun again in the Larry Craig gay sex scandal. The Idaho Statesman had two stories on Sunday. The first story reported (http://www.idahostatesman.com/102/story/226703.html) that more men have come forward concerning sexual overtures made to them by the U. S. Senator. Obviously, Craig's denials look weaker and weaker. Detailed accounts of each man's statements can be found in the Statesman article. Here are some highlights:

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. They are telling their stories now because they are offended by Craig's denials, including his famous statement, "I am not gay, I never have been gay." Those words, spoken on live national TV on Aug. 28, are now memorialized on a just-released-for-Christmas Talking Senator Larry Craig Action Figure.

David Phillips is a 42-year-old information technology consultant in Washington, D.C., who says Craig picked him up at a gay club in 1986 and that they subsequently had sex.

Mike Jones is a former prostitute who told the world he had sex with the Rev. Ted Haggard last year. The former Colorado Springs evangelist at first denied it but eventually confessed. Jones says Craig paid him for sex in late 2004 or early 2005.

Greg Ruth was a 24-year-old college Republican in 1981 when he says he was hit on by Craig at a Republican meeting in Coeur d'Alene.

Tom Russell, now 48, is a former Nampa resident who lives in Utah. Russell said his encounter with Craig occurred at Bogus Basin in the early 1980s.

A fifth gay man, who is from Boise but who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, offered a recent and telling account: He was in a men's restroom at Denver International Airport in September 2006 when the man in the next stall moved his hand slowly, palm up, under the divider. Alarmed, the man said he waited outside the restroom and then identified the man in the adjoining stall as Craig, whom he had met in Idaho.

There are no videos, no love letters, no voice messages. Like last August, they are he-said, he-said allegations about a man seeking discreet sex from partners whom he counted on to never tell. But the Statesman's investigation, which included reviews of travel and property records and background checks on all five men, found nothing to disprove the five new accounts. The men offer telling and sometimes similar details about what happened, or the senator's travel records place him in the city where sex is alleged to have occurred, or his accusers told credible witnesses at the time of the incident.

The second story ( http://www.idahostatesman.com/1264/story/226713.html) concerns the old 1982 Congressional Page scandal. Once again, Senator Craig may have been lying in his previous denials of involvement. Here are highlights from that story:

For 25 years, Sen. Larry Craig has not only denied wrongdoing in the 1982 page scandal but has insisted he was not among seven House members accused of homosexual conduct. The lawyer for the page who initiated the scandal says otherwise. On July 1, 1982, the day after the story of a congressional page scandal broke, then-Rep. Craig pre-emptively denied any connection to the scandal before he’d been named publicly. Craig now says speaking out was the mistake of a frightened first-term congressman and that he regrets that his statements have long fueled rumors he is gay.

Bob Scott is the Arkansas lawyer who represented Leroy Williams, the Republican House page who initiated the scandal but later recanted. “I am positive he named Larry Craig in 1982,” said Scott, a former GOP official in Arkansas. Scott said Williams recently reaffirmed to him that he named Craig in 1982. Williams, who is gay, has consistently declined comment. Repeated attempts by the Idaho Statesman to reach him failed. Scott said he believes Craig appears in a December 1982 House Ethics Committee report as “Congressman C,” who Williams said had sex with him two or three times.

Obviously, where there is this much smoke, it is hard to believe that there wasn't some fire too.

"I Had Sex with Larry Craig!"

Oh. My God! If this story reported on Wonkette pans out, Craig's "wide stance" story line is going down in flames (http://wonkette.com/politics/larry-craig-scandal/exclusive-i-had-sex-with-larry-craig-314897.php%22). Judge for yourself. Here are a couple of highlights:

It was late in the Spring of 1987, and Phillips was a graduate student at George Mason University. “One of my favorite hangouts was The Follies,” Phillips explains, referring to the notorious and now-closed go-go boy bar La Cage aux Follies on Capitol Hill. “There were so many closeted neocons who trolled for cock and ass there, particularly cock and ass on younger men: Terry Dolan, Jon Hinson, and a bunch of other men who seemed to run in a close and secretive group. I had sex with some of them at The Follies, and I even went home with a couple of them — at different times, at least — based on smooth talk and their attraction to a 20-something geek. One of them I would later recognize as Larry Craig.”

One night, Phillips continues, “I followed [Craig] from The Follies to a Capitol Hill neighborhood, parking on the street no telling how far from his house. We walked up the alley and through the back door of a house, with him repeating several times, ‘You were never here. You don’t know me. Right?’ and me responding, ‘Right!’ in boyish submission. “When we got to what reminded me of a rarely used guest room, he stripped me down, and the man’s hands and mouth were all over me. He kept his pants on, though, while laying me back on the bed to suck my cock. Then, he stripped naked and asked me to suck him. I complied for a while, then he disappeared and returned with lube and a condom to fuck me me with. It was a clumsy and unremarkable fuck, . . .

There were a bunch of Houston oil execs and financiers I tricked with during college, almost all of whom were married… so I’ve been on-edge during both Bush presidencies, waiting for one of them to rise to Cabinet level.”

Republican Senators Knew About Larry Craig

Once again it seems the powers that be in the GOP knew that Senator Larry Craig had a "problem," but ignored it for the sake of political expediency - just like they did with Mark Foley. The "family values" party appears to have only one core value: stay in power and ignore anything that might undermine that objective. This from Think Progress (http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/06/novak-craig-secret/):

On Bloomberg Television today, right-wing pundit Robert Novak revealed that “sources in the Senate” have told him that Senate conservatives had prior knowledge about Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-ID) “problem” but intentionally kept it “in the closet”:

"I have talked to several of my sources in the Senate, and this came as a surprise to me…They knew about it. They knew that he had this problem, and it was in the closet. And it was not just a homosexual relationship. It was this weird conduct. They didn’t do anything about it."

Novak added, “So Republicans, again, as in the case of Congressman Foley, their cover-up is coming back to haunt them.” Novak did not elaborate on what “weird conduct” Craig has carried out in the past. Recall, then-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) “and at least three of his aides were told of allegations that then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) had improper e-mail contacts with a former House page months before the incident became public.”

Ultimately, at least a dozen GOP lawmakers and aides admitted to having knowledge of Foley’s lewd behavior, “some of them for a year or more,” but kept the matter secret. If Novak’s sources are correct, then the Senate ethics investigation into Craig — which conservatives have been aggressively pushing for — should determine what Craig has done in the past and which Senators were involved in covering it up.

GOP's Other Family Values Scandal Widens

I think it is about time the GOP gets more pressure to deal with Senator Vitter's hypocrisy. If Larry Craig was pushed to resign, then Vitter should have the same standard applied to him. He has admitted to what are crimes in both D.C. and Louisiana. Here's 365gay.com's latest on Vitter:

(Beverley Hills, California) A former New Orleans prostitute who will be featured in Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine appeared at his office Tuesday to accuse Sen. David Vitter of having a sexual relationship with her in 1999. Wendy Ellis told reporters that Vitter visited her two to three times a week for sexual relations between July and November 1999.

Flynt produced parts of an Aug. 22 polygraph test that he said confirmed her account, but Ellis could provide no financial records, photographs or other evidence to support her assertion that the Louisiana Republican was a client during that time. Vitter, an advocate of "family values" who voted for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, has denied those claims.

I want the truth to be known," Ellis said. "It was a pure sexual relationship. He would come in and do his business."

Another report detailing how Vitter reportedly used a prostitute two or three times a week can be found here: (http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/vitter-was-meeting-one-prostitute-two.html). Wow, what family values!!!

Craig reversal angers GOP colleagues

Frankly, I find a great deal of entertainment in Larry Craig's possible decision to NOT resign. After 27 years in Congress, Craig found out that he had very few friends as almost everyone in the GOP rushed to throw him under the bus. Perhaps Senator Craig has learned that his erstwhile friends are merely opportunists who like you only as long as it is convenient. I hope Craig keeps the GOP twisting on their own sanctimonious rope for quite some time. Here are some highlights from Politico:

Just when Republicans thought things could not get much worse for their scandal-stained party, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig leaked word Tuesday night that he is reconsidering his abrupt plan to resign from the Senate in the wake of his arrest in a police sex sting operation.Top Republican strategists were neither delighted nor amused by the senator's decision to rethink retirement after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct following his arrest in a Minnesota airport men's bathroom.

A senior GOP Senate strategist said Republican leaders want him gone now and will press for him to keep his promise to resign. The strategist warned Craig is "losing any goodwill built up among his colleagues," adding, "He is simply a fish out of water, floundering right now to get his last gasp of political air."

"It simply defies reality," said a Senate GOP aide. "You can't make this up even if you are heavily medicated. The American people heard from Larry Craig that he would resign, and using the word 'intent' as a back door doesn't work with them."

The unexpected announcement caught fellow GOP senators – and members of Craig's own crisis management team – mostly by surprise and threatened to draw negative attention to the party at a time when it is preparing for big fights over the budget and the Iraq war.

The GOP Senate strategist said senators are frustrated they will now spend another day or more deflecting questions about Craig and his bathroom behavior. McConnell got a taste of what's to come at a press conference he held Tuesday. Why, he was asked, did the GOP leadership seek an ethics investigation of Craig while giving a pass to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) after he acknowledged in July that his phone number was among those on the client list of an alleged prostitution ring?

McConnell was pressed again: Were the responses different because the Craig incident involved alleged homosexual activity. He rejected suggestions that the Craig and Vitter incidents, coupled with the FBI raid of the home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in late July as part of a federal corruption probe, have contributed to Congress' sub-basement approval ratings or soiled the Republican Party brand.

I love it when the GOP attacks and self-destructs! I hope the cat fight goes on for a long time. See the full story at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5652.html

Hypocrites in GOP Pile on to Larry Craig

I will admit that at first I took a fair amount of glee when I first heard the story about Larry Craig (R-Idaho). As I have commented before, I love seeing anti-gay hypocrites taken down. However, it has reached a point where the senior GOP elected officials are going into overkill and I believe Craig is getting unequal treatment. If these paragons of virtue are true going to be true to their delicate sense of morality and/or sense of dignity, then they had better start calling for a lot more resignations, starting with prostitute loving David Vitter (R-La) who has confessed to using prostitutes. Last time I checked, that was a crime in both Louisiana and the District of Columbia. Of course if we move onto financial improprieties among the GOP, the list explodes. Lastly, we have the Chimperator and Darth Vader Cheney who willy nilly trash the Constitution and the rights of citizens and arguably are war criminals under the Geneva Conventions. The following are portions of a further Washington Post article (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/idaho-guv-the-bell-has-rung-on-craig/index.html?hp):

The calls for Senator Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho and subject of a scandal involving a “lewd-conduct” arrest in a public men’s restroom, to resign are mounting. In fact, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senator John Ensign of Nevada, has now been quoted as suggesting that Mr. Craig’s decision to plead guilty to a less serious charge of disorderly conduct from the situation at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in June would be enough for Mr. Ensign to consider doing so.

Without mentioning the “R-word,” Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” (we kid you not) Otter, a longtime colleague and friend of Senator Craig, sort of signaled that time had pretty much run out for the Idaho senator.

Just as Mr. Otter told Ms. Bash he just didn’t want to “go there” about calling for the senator’s resignation, Mr. Ensign sort of side-stepped the “R-word” too. But this is what Mr. Ensign, who is running the campaign arm for 22 Senate Republicans up for re-election in 2008, said, according to the The Associated Press today, from his home state of Nevada:

Senator Craig “admitted guilt, he pled guilty. It’s a little different situation than just being accused of something.”

Mr. Ensign stopped short of calling on Craig to resign his seat, but strongly suggested he do so. “I wouldn’t put myself hopefully in that kind of position, but if I was in a position like that, that’s what I would do,” he said. “He’s going to have to answer that for himself.”

Again, why doesn't the prostitute soliciting David Vitter have to have to account for his own admitted criminal conduct? When you claim to be the party of purity, you do not get to pick and chose which moral improprieties do not count.

Critics: GOP should treat 'DC madam senator' like Craig

I have to admit that the critics have a point and the selective treatment being dished out to Larry Craig should be applicable across the board by the party of "family values." That Craig is receiving different treatment shows the hypocrisy of the GOP - and "Values Voters" - when it comes to consistently supporting moral conduct. Here are a few highlights from a Raw Story article (http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Craigs_quick_condemnation_shows_hypocrisy_in_0830.html). Glenn Greenwald's analysis is most telling:

Less that 24 hours after he expressed regret for pleading guilty to disorderly conduct after an undercover cop said the Idaho Republican propositioned him, Craig was ousted from his committee posts in a decision Senate leaders said was "in the best interest" of the chamber. Meanwhile, it has been 52 days since Craig's GOP colleague David Vitter acknowledged the "serious sin" of soliciting a call girl, yet the Louisiana senator has not budged from his committee posts. Where Craig faced condemnation, Vitter received words of encouragement from colleagues -- or at the very least, silence.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald outlines some other possible explanations for the different treatment of Craig's and Vitter's sexual escapades. For one thing, Craig's vacant seat would be filled by a Republican governor, whereas Vitter would be replaced by a Democrat, further tipping the balance of power in the Senate. But Greenwald goes on to observe that attacks on gay Republicans have "no political cost" because they condemn none of the "values voters" upon which the party relies. Conversely, heterosexual perversion, divorce, and out-of-wedlock childbirth are substantial problems, especially in the very regions of the country where Republican support is highest, so the party is unwilling to lead moral crusades against those sins, Greenwald argues.

"The only kind of 'morality' that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality," he says. "That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation."