Kevin Spacey Defamed All Gay/Bisexual Men By Coming Out

Most members of the LGBT community are hard working, honorable individuals who never engage in predatory behavior.  That said, it is no secret that the enemies of LGBT equality, especially self-styled Christian "family values" organizations, go to great lengths in depicting gays and bisexual men as deviants, would be child molesters,  pedophiles - the slurs and nasty names is lengthy.  Therefore, all of us owe it to ourselves and the larger LGBT community not to play into the hands of our enemies.  Kevin Spacey apparently never learned this truth as he officially "came out" seemingly only as a means to distract from those rightly condemning his improper behavior in the past.  Instead he played right into the hands of enemies of the LGBT community who will thrill at holding up Spacey as a prime example of why gays are a danger to children and youths and larger society.  A column in Huffington Post by Michelangelo Signorile expands on this concept and justifiably slams Spacey.  Here are excerpts:

Let’s count the ways Kevin Spacey defamed all gay and bisexual men by coming out of the closet in a tweet last night. 

And then, we’ll look at how the closet and power corrupts, turning an individual’s self-loathing into a weapon against an entire community. In the case of Kevin Spacey, that now has the potential to do terrible damage. 

Defamation no. 1:  Gays = predators and sexual abusers: After years of rumors and refusing to answer the question about his sexual orientation, Spacey only came out after being accused of sexually abusing a then-14-year-old actor, Anthony Rapp, who came forward on Sunday to Buzzfeed News about a 1986 incident which Spacey didn’t even deny. Spacey used coming out, bizarrely, as a cover. It was a selfish attempt to distract and seek sympathy. By doing so he conflates being gay with sexually abusing children, the hideous homophobic lie perpetrated by anti-LGBTQ extremists.

Defamation no. 2: Gays’ sex-crazed impulses are fueled further by drugs and alcohol:  Spacey offers the excuse of being drunk for what he says may or may not have happened ― what he calls “deeply inappropriate drunken behavior” ― as if being drunk and gay leads to sexual predation. 

Defamation no. 3: Bisexuality, as an identity, doesn’t exist: Spacey negates bisexuality by saying he has had relationships with men and women ― we have no idea whether this is true or not, and we have no reason to believe anything this man says ― but then goes on to identify as gay. Except...

Defamation no. 4: Homosexuality is a choice: ...he didn’t actually identify as gay but rather said, “I choose now to live as a gay man.” Again, this is the language of the enemies of LGBTQ equality, who claim homosexuality is a choice. By putting that idea forth as a public figure Spacey gives ammunition to the Christian right at a time when Donald Trump and Mike Pence have declared war on LGBTQ rights on behalf of their extremist evangelical supporters.

Defamation no. 5: Gays are liars and manipulators who will do anything to cover up their ugly behavior:  Spacey makes all gay men not only appear to be sexual predators ― again, the ugly lie perpetrated by hate groups like the Family Research Council ― but he makes all gay men out to be manipulators and con artists who will do whatever possible to cover up horrendous behavior. In what appears to be a preemptive strike against any further accusations surfacing, Spacey alludes to other “stories out there about me that have been fueled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy.” Here, Spacey is attempting to negate any future stories, and framed them as made up by those who are supposedly so hellbent on taking away his “privacy” that they will fabricate stories. This is laughable, and it’s transparent to the enemies of LGBTQ equality, as well.

Kevin Spacey is motivated by internalized homophobia, which has kept him in the closet all these years, blowing up in his mind the ramifications for him if he came out.

He has angrily attacked anyone who has raised the question, even in this day and age when so many of us who are queer see nothing wrong with asking about it.

Spacey and many other influential and powerful individuals who are closeted have often done damage because they send a message that being gay is shameful. And, for some, the combustible combination of the closet and power can be dangerous.

The closet itself warps their thinking and their judgement, as they become consumed by their secret and doing whatever it takes to keep it. Though it’s not always the case ― and we’ve seen powerful public figures come out proudly when the time is right for them, and then do enormously positive things ― the closet, if kept closed for so long, can corrupt their lives and the lives of many around them who look the other way of their corruptive behavior.

[L]ooking at the late multi-millionaire Malcolm Forbes, the late Hollywood producer Merv Griffin and an unnamed Washington DC politician, closeted, powerful gay and bisexual men can often engage in sexual harassment and predatory behavior, and often in the workplace. They’re trapped by their self-imposed closet, not able to go out publicly to meet gay people. And yet they’re able use their power to prey upon those ― sometimes closeted gay men themselves ― who work for them.

Someone like Spacey, so gripped with self-hate, has little concern about the larger LGBTQ community and clearly doesn’t possess an awareness for how his response to Rapp would defame it. . . . he must be challenged loudly and forcefully.

Very well said, Michelangelo.

"Conservative Gay" Milo Yiannopoulos' Book Deal Canceled

There are many self-loathing gays who cling to conservativism.  Some are closeted like, in my view, Republicans Rick Santorum and Ken Cuccinelli who are just a tad too hysterical about gays and gay relationships.  Then you have "out" gays who nonetheless cling to the GOP - think the Log Cabin Republicans - even as conservatives trash them and work to make them third class citizens.  Then there is alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos who mainly seeks to shock, insult and denigrate the rest of the LGBT community.  In my view, all three categories of individuals require serious mental health interventions, but Yiannopoulos falls into a category all his own.  Seemingly, his never ending effort to shock and appall has at last backfired.  In the wake of newly released videos that suggest a support for pedophilia, he finds his misconceived book deal cancelled, himself dis invited from CPAC, a gathering of right wing extremists, and his job at the always sleazy Breitbart News at risk.    USA Today looks at  Yiannopoulos' self-immolation.  Here are excerpts:

Milo Yiannopoulos' book Dangerous was canceled abruptly Monday after Republican conservatives released clips of videos-with-audio in which he seemed to condone sex between men and boys.

In a terse statement released Monday afternoon, the right-wing provocateur's publisher said: "After careful consideration, Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint have canceled publication of Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos."

Minutes later, Yiannopoulos posted this on Facebook: "They canceled my book."

Yiannopoulos' provocative right-wing persona (he attacked feminists and trashed women who used birth control, to name a few of his views), helped get him a reported $250,000 book deal from Threshold Editions, a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster, which was due to release Dangerous in June.

The gay British writer, who has collected kudos in the era of Donald Trump as a self-described "dangerous" provocateur, teetered on the edge of disaster Monday after Republican conservatives released clips of videos-with-audio in which he talked about his own past as a teenager who had sex with men and suggested that some young teen boys might be old enough to give consent to such sexual relationships.

Yiannopoulos tried on Facebook to defend himself but it didn't matter. He was abruptly dis-invited from speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference starting this week in Washington, according to a tweet from the American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp.

Meanwhile, Yiannopoulos' employer, Breitbart News, was reported by Fox Business Network and Washingtonian magazine to be considering whether to fire him from his writer/editor job where he has gained fame and infamy in equal measure while gleefully aiming vitriol at liberals, gays, Jews, foreigners, Democrats, plus many others.

Yiannopoulos has so far not commented on his CPAC snub. But he fought back against his critics in a long post Monday on Facebook that he called "a note for idiots."  He denied being in favor of pedophilia, acknowledged he does believe there are relationships between "younger men" and older men that can help a young gay man, and admitted he shouldn't have used the word "boy" in discussing those relationships.

The clips, dug up after Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at CPAC, record Yiannopoulos discussing Jews, sexual consent, statutory rape, child abuse and homosexuality. He also joked — in an "edgy way," he claimed — about his own teen sexual encounter with a priest. 

Sorry, but I cannot summon an ounce of sympathy for this vile individual.  Karma can be a bitch and he royally deserves to receive what he has dished out.

Why Silence Equals Death in the Age of Trump

One of the things I worry about is the increased threats that LGBT individuals will likely face under the reign of Der Fuhrer, a/k/a Donald Trump, is the likely resurgence of anti-LGBT animus which will be eagerly fanned by Christofascists and their puppets in the Republican Party, including Der Fuhrer who seems to have sold his soul (or whatever approximates one in Trump's case) to secure the evangelical extremist Christian vote.  This has the potential to drive some members of the LGBT community back into the closet, particularly LGBT youth and those living in backward rural areas. For some, like myself and the husband, going back in the closet simply not an option.  We are simply too "out" and too well know by both friend and foe.  A piece in Vice makes the case of why we all must resist the urge to "pass" as straight or go back in the closet.  Long term, it is self-defeating even if potentially comforting in the short term.   Here are article highlights: 

Since the moment Donald Trump was elected president, LGBTQ Americans have joined with members of nearly every other minority group in fretting about which of their hard-earned advances might suddenly be blocked or rolled back. Among the concrete gains currently at risk are an executive order prohibiting discrimination by some 30,000 federal contractors, a government interpretation of existing law that guarantees transgender students the right to proper accommodations, and a widely-praised new military policy that ended years of senseless discrimination against LGBTQ service members. Not to mention the triumph of marriage equality in all fifty states, a legal status that would be difficult (though not impossible) to reverse.

It's perfectly understandable that LGBTQ people would focus on the concrete policies and protections that a Trump government might imperil. Yet there is another layer of gains—perhaps more subtle, but every bit as crucial to the improvement of LGBTQ lives—that are also put at risk by the rise of Trump and what he represents: the full-throttled freedom to be and express ourselves, as we truly are.

This focus on authentic, expressive liberty, on the power of words and other forms of communication to shape the reality of our lives in unique and profound ways, has been one of the most enduring contributions of queer thought to American culture. It has special resonance for LGBTQ people because many (though by no means all) of us are able to "pass" as straight or cisgender. Those queer feelings or desires that make us part of the LGBTQ community are largely internal; while external signs can be discernible—especially for some trans and gender-nonconforming people—in general, what we feel at heart is hidden unless we make it known or are outed.

The corollary to this ability to pass has been the insistence by anti-LGBTQ forces that being queer is a "choice," and that we already have the same freedoms as everyone else—all we have to do is decide to operate as straight or cisgender, and we'll realize, Wizard of Oz-like, that we can serve in uniform (if we repress or control our "confusion"), marry (someone of the opposite sex), or use a public restroom (that matches our sex at birth). The insistence that we "choose" to be gay or transgender is another way of saying that we don't actually exist as gay or trans people, that everyone is naturally straight or cis, and some of us simply have a gender or sexuality "problem."

The age of Trump, which has already unleashed a wave of hate crimes, will bring a whole new level of pressure to cover as a way to minimize our vulnerability to genuine harm, either by the government or the public. Now is the time to remind ourselves that there is no true liberty without insisting on the freedom to be, and express, who we really are. In the face of those who will demand that we repress our queerness, what's most important for the future of queer lives under Trump is that we continue to come out, stay out, and show that we exist. Short of doing that, we'll only ever enjoy our rights under the condition that we "cover" who we really are, and those aren't rights or freedoms at all. 

Of course, this challenge is nothing new for LGBTQ Americans, and we can look to our own history for guidance even in this unprecedented age. Queer people have always faced the choice of whether to assimilate as the price for acceptance or to insist on our right to be different. With the triumph of marriage equality, it often appears that the LGBTQ movement opted for assimilation over liberation. While there's truth to this, it is also true that nearly every major issue and policy our movement has tackled advanced not just our right to be like everybody else, but this broader ideal of expressive freedom—and not just for LGBTQ people, but for all Americans.

Ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy was not about allowing or integrating gay people into the military; we were already there. Instead, it was about ensuring that we could come out and serve honestly, about no longer forcing us to lie or pretend or play a role as a condition of service. The same was true of the more recent elimination of the military's transgender ban and, in a wider sense, the Obama Administration's transgender school guidance and support for transgender equality.

Legal protections against anti-LGBTQ discrimination can be crucial to one's livelihood. But they are equally crucial to allowing us to acknowledge, and thus to be, who we are.

The importance of these expressive freedoms can also be grasped by considering why their opponents sought to repress them. The reason DADT was so insidious was that it singled out a particular group for unfair punishment, and then prevented that group from defending itself, asserting its existence, and thus fighting to secure its rights. The reason hate crimes are so reprehensible is because they are used to intimidate entire groups as a way to police our behavior and expression. This is why denying discrimination protections is so contemptible—because without job safety in coming out, millions of Americans stay mired in the closet, unable to show the world just how unthreatening we truly are. 

And without the freedom to marry, we were denied the opportunity to show the world that our love had the same worth and dignity as any other love. Keeping gay people silent and invisible—as war heroes and ordinary civilians—was key to preventing our advances. The creation of the closet reinforced the belief that, at best, we didn't exist, and at worst, we were a lurking threat to everything virtuous and worthwhile.

[R]eversal of these gains would make our lives far worse than they were before. Having increasingly built our lives around the freedom to express ourselves as we are, pressure to crawl back into the closet would not only be a harrowing loss, but would create all kinds of new hardships.

Rolling back state recognition of such relationships could mean imperiling legal protections for hundreds of thousands of children, and even severing ties between children and their parents.

In all these cases, advances in law have not been about social experimentation or political correctness; they have been about catching up with realities of American life. They were realities sometimes obscured by delusional or deceptive social conservatives hankering to return to an idealized America (back when it was, er, "great").

The good news is this: If these expressive freedoms are vulnerable to reversal, they are ultimately extremely difficult to roll back. . . . Even trying to block further advances will be increasingly tough, given the number of Americans from all backgrounds and political affiliations who now know and love someone who is LGBTQ.

What's needed now is solidarity among all these groups who prize and rely on expressive liberty for a life that's worth living. We've spent too many hundreds of years being forced to pretend we were something we're not; we all know how repressive, demeaning and inimical that was to the genuine pursuit of happiness. What's also needed is a redoubling of our own commitment to combatting our fear, to fighting the urge to repress or to pass or to cover, even when dangers confront us. If the LGBTQ movement (and its compatriots) have given the world anything worth protecting, it's been this invaluable contribution to the Enlightenment ideal that individuals must be truly free to be themselves, and the unforgettable lesson that silence, indeed, equals death.

 #NotMyPresident.  I will personally, never, ever be closeted again.

FBI: No Corroboration That Orlando Shooter Was Gay

In the wake of the Orlando massacre at a gay night club, initial reports suggested that some had claimed to have seen the shooter at Pulse, the club targeted, and/or had seen him of gay dating and hookup apps.  The thinking was that perhaps his own self-loathing and inability to find self-acceptance of his sexuality may have helped him to commit the heinous act.  History is full of closeted, self-loathing gays who persecuted other gays.  J. Edgar Hoover is one such example and we have seen a cavalcade of closeted Republican politicians and right wing clergy seek to criminalize same sex relationships in a perverse reaction to their own demons.  However, to date, the FBI has found nothing to corroborate the false claims about the shooter's sexuality.  Here are highlights from the New York Times:

After news media reports suggested that the man who carried out the massacre at a gay nightclub here may have himself been gay, the company that bills itself as “the world’s largest gay hookup site” put out what amounted to a distress call, asking members who may have been in contact with the gunman, Omar Mateen, to come forward.

In an attempt to find an account connected to the killer, the site, Adam4Adam combed through the profile photos of every one of its 300,000 Florida members and researched 20 email addresses used by Mr. Mateen over the years that the company said had been provided by the F.B.I.  Adam4Adam came up with nothing.

“I think it was a hoax,” David Lesage, a spokesman for the Montreal-based company, said about the reports that Mr. Mateen had used Adam4Adam and other dating sites and apps for gay men.

Although federal officials have said Mr. Mateen had become radicalized to some extent online, at least half a dozen men have come forward with claims that hint at another potential motive, reporting that they had seen Mr. Mateen at gay clubs, encountered him online or had romantic encounters with him.

The claims have prompted investigators to look into whether Mr. Mateen, who had called 911 pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, was also a closeted gay man consumed by feelings of self-loathing and revenge.

F.B.I. investigators, who have conducted more than 500 interviews in the case, are continuing to contact men who claim to have had sexual relations with Mr. Mateen or think they saw him at gay bars. But so far, they have not found any independent corroboration — through his web searches, emails or other electronic data — to establish that he was, in fact, gay, officials said.

“While we are not at liberty to comment on any specifics, I can tell you that as of now, utilizing the information Jack’d has been provided, we have not been able to substantiate that Omar Mateen was a Jack’d user,” Mr. Dorta said.

Even if the shooter was not a self-loathing gay man, it is obvious that religion and the poison it legitimizes  played a major role in the blood shed.  As noted many times. religion is a toxic evil that continues to leave a trail of death and ruined lives. 

Did Former Anti-Gay Archbishop Cruise Parks and Seek "Poppers"?

As noted in an earlier post today, a new study has found that the worse homophobes are likely closeted gays.  If you want a poster boy for this phenomenon, look no farther than former Catholic Archbishop John Nienstedt of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who has shown himself to be an extreme foe of LGBT rights and marriage equality and who resigned in disgrace under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations.  Now, the Star Tribune is reporting that sworn affidavits from priests, former seminarians and a former priest accuse Niensted of frequenting areas known for "cruising" by gay men, seeking poppers and frequenting a gay club.  All this on top of allegations of misconduct with priests and seminarians and failing to report abuse of minors by predator priests.  Here are story highlights:

Former Archbishop John Nienstedt said he remains “dumbfounded” by the allegations of personal misconduct that emerged last year during an internal church investigation of his behavior — a report that the archdiocese now is considering making public.

Commissioned by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the probe looked into claims that Nienstedt had engaged in behavior that was inappropriate for a priest. The Star Tribune has learned that investigators collected affidavits from priests, former seminarians and a former priest alleging actions, some dating to the Detroit area in the early 1980s, that range from inappropriate touching to visiting a gay nightclub.

Nienstedt resigned June 15, after Ramsey County prosecutors filed criminal and civil charges against the archdiocese, alleging “failure to protect children.”

Some priests and parishioners are pressing interim Archbishop Bernard Hebda to make last year’s investigation of Nienstedt public. He must balance those demands against the promise of confidentiality granted to those who participated in the investigation, as well as the possible implications — if any — it could have in the criminal case brought by Ramsey County.

The Star Tribune has confirmed that five Catholic priests, one former priest and a former seminarian were among those who provided affidavits.

In one affidavit, a priest in Harrison Township, Mich., reported seeing Nienstedt at a gay nightclub in Windsor, Ontario, just across the border from Detroit in the 1980s. “I recall seeing John — and there is no doubt in my mind that it was him based on my prior interactions with him — at the Happy Tap,” the Rev. Lawrence Ventline wrote in his affidavit. “He appeared to wave me off as I was coming — and I backed off because I did not want impose on him.”

Another affidavit from a Michigan priest said that Nienstedt pulled up to his car in an area frequented by gay men one December in the early 1980s and asked him if he had any “poppers,” an inhalant used by gay men to enhance sexual pleasure. When he got into Nienstedt’s car, and Nienstedt recognized him as a former student, he changed the subject, the priest told the Star Tribune.

A former seminarian at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, James Heathcott, also filed an affidavit. He said that Nienstedt — who was the seminary’s rector — expelled him after he refused an invitation to join Nienstedt and two other seminarians on a private weekend at a ski chalet in the late 1980s.

In addition, the Star Tribune obtained a 2014 letter sent by a former student at Sacred Heart Seminary to former auxiliary bishop Lee Piché, who oversaw the Nienstedt investigation, alleging that Nienstedt touched his buttocks after a dinner together one night between 2000 and 2002. Joseph Rangitsch said he protested and Nienstedt replied he could “make things unpleasant for you very quickly.”

Nienstedt denied all the allegations . . . . Nienstedt believes some of the accusations are “retribution” for his stance on social issues. As auxiliary bishop in Detroit, he ended the gay community’s use of a Catholic church for liturgies. In Minnesota, he led an unsuccessful campaign to amend the Minnesota Constitution to ban gay marriages.

 That the Vatican happily accepted Nienstedt's resignation may indicate that despite Nienstedt's protestations, there may be fire beneath the smoke laid out in the affidavits.

Homophobia and America's Huge" Closet"

Sarah Rice—Getty Images

Despite advances in gay rights compared to even 15 years ago, the number of men who remain in the closet remains shockingly large and demonstrates that homophobia and fear of becoming a social outcast and/or losing one's job is very much alive and well, especially in "conservative" states an regions.  Don't believe me?  Try a simple experiment: check out Craigslist and see how many "MWM" - married white male - and "DL" - down low - individuals that you will find on any given day.  There are LOTS of them.  Odds are these individuals do not respond to surveys admitting their true sexual orientation.  Hence, the true umber of gays is, in my view still, way under reported.  A piece in Time Magazine looks at America's huge closet and the damage that it does. Here are some highlights:

After determining that the percentage of men attracted primarily to men is roughly equivalent in states throughout the country, based on dating site and adult-content searches, Stephens-Davidowitz was able to draw some preliminary conclusions. The barriers preventing men from building openly gay lives in certain parts of the country are clearly specific to the local social climate. For instance: The rate of Craigslist searches by men seeking casual encounters with men is higher in Mississippi than in New York, while there’s a higher rate of gay men seeking dates and relationships on Match.com in New York than in Mississippi.

“The closet doesn’t just mean you don’t announce your sexuality on Facebook,” Stephens-Davidowitz said. “It’s influencing people’s lives in a big way.” For a closeted gay or bisexual man in Mississippi or someplace like it, in other words, a relationship with a man may seem impossible. Some men in this situation are married to women or are trying to pass as heterosexual while seeking secretive, casual encounters on the side.

Stephens-Davidowitz points to one horribly confining and terribly sad effect of homophobia in conservative parts of the country and even in conservative areas of more liberal regions: It allows gay and bisexual men in these regions to seek only furtive, often dangerous sexual encounters with other men rather than making free choices about their sexual and emotional interactions and enjoying the rites of passage of dating and relationships just as heterosexuals do.

Looking at Google searches, Stephens-Davidowitz found that the question “How do I know if my husband is gay?” is far more common than “How do I know if my husband is cheating?” or “How do I know if my husband is depressed?” Moreover, the highest percentage per capita of “How do I know if my husband is gay?” searches come from conservative parts of the country, with South Carolina at number 1, followed by Kentucky and Louisiana.

Stephens-Davidowitz determined that, . . . about half of gay men nationally do not identify publicly as gay or bisexual. In more conservative places, again using Mississippi as an example, that figure goes up to 80%.

Far fewer people are openly gay (or, we can assume, openly lesbian or bisexual) than we have come to think, even in perhaps the most liberal places, and it’s extremely difficult to be out in many parts of the country. The presumption of victory whitewashes the hardship of millions of Americans — not just lesbians and gays themselves but also the spouses and children of people living in the closet.

“In Gallup polls, among people under the age of 30, more than 6 percent of adults tell pollsters they’re gay,” Williams Institute Demographer Gary Gates told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2013 . . . a large piece of that is younger people are growing up in an environment where this is acceptable, so they’re willing to identify themselves as gay.”

The closet is very damaging, both for gays and their families - I know, I lived in the closet for 37 years.  It made me miserable much of the time and certainly prevented me from being as good of parent as I might otherwise have been.  Self-hate and self-loathing and living in fear of having one's "secret" discovered does not make for a happy life or quality relationships.  Yet, thanks to the "godly folk" and the embrace of ignorance and bigotry, millions still suffer because of homophobia and the closet.  This needs to end NOW.

 

Straight Spouses - the Other Victims of the "Ex-Gay" Myth

I've commented before on the manner in which the Christofascists who strive to keep the "ex-gay" myth alive care nothing about the harm they do to straight spouses who marry gays or lesbians who are either (i) in the closet trying to convince themselves they aren't gay, or (ii) deluding themselves into believing that they have "prayed away the gay."  Both categories of gays/lesbians are motivated, of course by those who condemn homosexuality and keep alive societal disapproval of same sex sexual orientation.  The motivation of the Christofascists - in addition to (a) making money running fraudulent "cure" ministries and/or (b) over compensating for their own same sex attractions - is to avoid admitting that the Bible is wrong about homosexuality so as to maintain their fantasy world religious beliefs.  With TLC having recently broadcast the ridiculous My Husband's Not Gay, one straight spouse has spoken out at Huffington Post and rightly blames the "godly folk" for the damage done to straight spouses and their children.  Here are post highlights:

As the hype around the TLC show My Husband's Not Gay begins to wane, I find it a shame that there has been little attention paid to the perspectives of straight women who have experienced being in a mixed-orientation marriage, where one spouse is gay and the other is straight.

The reality is too complex, hurtful and shrouded in embarrassment.  This embarrassment is also felt by the lesbian or gay spouse and is not to be diminished. The straight spouse, however, experiences these things from a different angle, and it is important to not overshadow his or her journey.

There are two things that are frustrating regarding mixed-orientation marriages. The biggest issue is how religious and archaic thinking exacerbates the problem of lesbian and gay people entering into "traditional" marriages. Secondly, straight women and men who have been blindsided by a spouse coming out experience shame and embarrassment, so much so that they often do not receive the help and support that they need from others, who remain unaware of how common this crisis is and how hurtful it can be.

 Straight spouses are often considered naïve, victims or even stupid. So it is not surprising that people who need support and empathy are too afraid to reach out during one of the most difficult times in their lives.

TLC used to be known as The Learning Channel. If they truly wanted to live up to their legacy, here are the things that they would help viewers learn about mixed-orientation marriages.

1. Finding out your spouse is lesbian or gay is one of the most painful experiences any straight spouse can go through. Many people who have experienced a spouse coming out of the closet hear the following from well-meaning comrades: "Well, at least you aren't being cheated on with another woman. I mean, who can compete with that?" This is not accurate. When a man comes out to a straight wife who never saw it coming, she often cannot grasp the possibility that her husband might be truly gay.  . . . . when a spouse comes out as gay, the entire marriage is called into question. There is an intense need to try to understand everything that the couple has ever been through, to figure out if it was even real or not. An affair with someone of the same sex is better? It isn't quite that simple.  

2. A straight spouse can try to stay married with the knowledge that their spouse is lesbian or gay, but they will always live with an enormous amount of distrust and suspicion. Many couples do try to stay together. While it is difficult to understand, some of the reasons include the number of years they have been married, a desire to stick it out for their children, a desire to work through it with the possibility of having an open marriage, or pressure from perceived religious or societal beliefs. . . . on the show on TLC, everything seems great for one of the couples until the husband, who is "same-sex-attracted," announces that he is going on a camping trip. His wife's face betrays her suspicions, and she has to talk herself into trusting him, even though he has cheated on her before in their own home. . . . This is not trust. This is not intimacy. 

3. Conservative religious views, including archaic ideas coming from society, keep many gay men and women from living honest, fulfilling lives. Instead, they pull other people into their world because they want to change, desperately. They get married. They have kids. They take positions of leadership in their churches and in civil society through politics. They wax eloquent about how fulfilling their lives are -- when all the while they are hiding, lying to themselves and others. Eventually, under extreme pressure, they often explode and ruin everything around them. . . . . Religion and archaic societal ideas are the very things that exacerbate an already difficult situation.

Legislating what marriage means in our secular world, keeping lesbian and gay people from having the same rights as everyone else, and preaching that being gay is a choice and a sin encourages people to be dishonest. It manipulates people into hiding this part of themselves by getting married to straight people, having children with them, and living a charade that will blow up in their faces -- and in the faces of those they don't want to hurt.

4. Until conservative religious people face the truth about what their beliefs do to people who are lesbian or gay and married to a straight spouse, there will be very little change in religious communities. The expression "Love the sinner but hate the sin" is not in the Bible. It is a philosophy that was devised by St. Augustine and has been taken out of context for entirely too long.

Until a religious conservative experiences a child or a spouse coming out of the closet, the degree to which this belief hurts people -- and even contributes to suicide -- cannot be fully understood. People who claim to know how to "fix" something that isn't broken, and haven't walked in those shoes, have no business trying to lecture, counsel or legislate on these issues, unless they truly try to understand the situation. It's impossible to "pray away the gay."

5. A relationship can go one of two ways after a spouse comes out as lesbian or gay: It can remain tenuous and bitter, or it can be beautiful. With a lot of time, work and compromise, a couple (especially one with children) can have a blended family without being married. Amicable divorce is possible. While it takes two people for it work, change is attainable and can turn tragedy into something wonderfully unique. Some people cannot move forward, especially if one of the spouses is unable to do what it takes because of selfishness or bitterness. This kind of thing is very sad, because it could have been avoided completely if our society and our religious leanings weren't so guilt- and pressure-oriented regarding lesbian and gay people. If lesbian and gay people are able to live openly and honestly, a lot of heartache can be avoided.

For people who are in this situation with kids, it can be a blessing. That may seem strange to hear, but ultimately, if it weren't for the marriage, the gift of being a parent would not have been experienced. This can be the silver lining that actually helps people choose the beautiful path of amicable divorce and living as a blended family. 

I suspect that my former wife will never fully forgive me.  From the perspective of the gay spouse, what is perhaps the hardest thing is convincing your straight spouse that you never meant to harm them.  For gays of my generation who grew up into early adulthood at a time when being gay was literally classified as a mental illness, one desperately sought to convince one's self that they were not really gay.  Adding to the pressure was the ever present poison of religion that depicted gays as depraved and headed toward Hell.   If these so-called mixed orientation marriages to be come a thing of the past, religion must be driven out of public policy and religious conservatives who out of laziness or a willing embrace of ignorance need to become the outcasts that they have tried to make gays. 

Coming Out and Becoming a Better Parent

My coming out in mid-life was not easy for me or for my children and truth be told, not divorce is any easy thing for the children involved.  Added to all of the other stresses is the gossip and homophobia that is still far to prevalent in society, especially the conservative community in which I lived in the closeted phase of my life.  I certainly was not a happy person while in the closet and that unhappiness and self-hatred had to spill over into my parenting.  Despite all of the turmoil, I like to think that I am now a far better parent and, I hope my children have learned that they need to live their lives to make themselves happy, not please parents or societal expectations.  In contrast, the Christofascists want gays to remain in marriages that are not working so as to pretend they have "prayed away the gay" and to please their imaginary friend in the sky.  A piece in Huffington Post by a woman who came out later in life reflects some of my thinking on this issue.  Here are article highlights:

I came out in the early 1980s -- into a thriving lesbian community that was fueled by the feminist movement and had some overlap with the gay male community. I always knew that there were different realities for gay people and that many still were in the closet. I dismissed these realities as not being connected to mine. It wasn't until I met Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed., and read her books . . . .   that I began to reconsider.

Kaye is an internationally known author and counselor to straight women who are married to gay men. She also counsels closeted gay men on how honesty can help them and their female spouses.

An opinion piece in The New York Times reports that "the openly gay population is dramatically higher in more tolerant states...." Based on factual research, the author concludes, "The evidence also suggests that a large number of gay men are married to women."

Of course, there are also many closeted lesbians who are married to straight men, something that was documented on The Huffington Post.

I came to the conclusion that homophobia is hurting us all -- the straight spouses, the closeted gay or lesbian spouse, the children and particularly the children of closeted gay parents who identify as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning). Ultimately I was left with more questions than answers. Here Bonnie answers them.

Bonnie Kaye, M.Ed.: My counseling work specializes in straight women who unknowingly married gay men, and gay men who were hoping they were straight and believed marriage would "cure" those attractions for other men. I started this counseling after the end of my own marriage to a gay man in 1978. Since that time, I have worked with over 100,000 people in this situation, 96 percent women and 4 percent gay men.

Kaye: I believe these marriages are toxic. Marriages are based on honest communication, intimacy on a physical and emotional level, and fidelity. A gay husband isn't able to provide this to a woman in a sustaining way, as his urges to be with men heighten as the years go on. In many cases, the husband becomes either emotionally or physically abusive due to his frustration of being in the wrong place with the wrong gender. The marriage needs to end because both parties are losing out on what they deserve. However, families can be "redefined" after divorce and remain close as each partner has a chance to find his and her true soul mate. 

Kaye: Living a lie takes its toll on the whole family unit. They say that secrets destroy families, and this is certainly true. Most children are so sophisticated today that they learn the secret before their mothers do. Then they become keepers of the secret, which tears them apart. If they tell their mothers, they fear it will destroy her life. If they don't tell her, they feel a sense of betrayal because their father is cheating. 

Kaye: Children who are gay struggle so much more with dishonest gay parents. Children can sense or know when they have a gay father. His rejection of their homosexuality makes their struggle that much more difficult. They start feeling that "If even my gay father won't accept me, how will others?" 

Kaye: Straight spouses need to find support to go through this grieving process in order to move on. Gay partners have to learn that they have the responsibility to help with the collateral family damage that will take place once this revelation is out. The beginning is always filled with turmoil and angry feelings, but the goal should be to redefine the family but work together as much as possible. Sadly, many gay partners are so happy to finally be "free" they pursue what they feel they've missed for so many years and don't provide that support.

I do not have gay children and I did not cheat on my former wife for years as many closeted men seem to do - just check out Craigslist and other sites to see the large number of cheating married men - but life in the closet was emotionally and psychologically exhausting.   Especially when you factor in the toxic religious brainwashing I suffered growing up Catholic.  For children, being honest and genuine is so important, yet it is something you cannot give when you are lying to yourself and those around you.  Again, I believe coming out ultimately made me a better parent.  Certainly a far more honest parent.

Marcus "Ladybird" Bachmann Still Smarting Over 'Ex-Gay' Scandal

One of the Christofascists' biggest lies - there are so many that it is difficult to select the biggest one - is the myth that gays change "change" and become "ex-gay."  True, some tortured individuals who have been subjected to religious brainwashing and suffer from other psychological ills will try to convince themselves that they are no longer gay, but as the continued parade of former "ex-gay" leaders demonstrates, no change ever really occurs.  Thus, it was delicious to see Marcus "Ladybird" Bachmann - one of the gayest sounding men I've ever heard - exposed as a charlatan peddling the "ex-gay" myth and sucking up tax payer funds in the process.  My friend John Becker has a piece in The Bilerico Project that recounts his undercover effort to expose Bachmann's fraudulent "Christian counseling" business.  Here are highlights:

Almost three and a half years ago, I went undercover with hidden cameras at Marcus Bachmann's "Christian counseling" clinic and filmed fraudulent "ex-gay" therapy sessions there. The story made headlines, catapulting the dangerous quackery of "ex-gay" therapy back into the national conversation and presenting Michele Bachmann with the first major obstacle in her spectacularly unsuccessful bid for the presidency.

It also turned Marcus Bachmann into something of a punchline -- and as it turns out, several years later he's still ever so pissed about it. Right Wing Watch reports that in an interview this weekend, Bachmann took the time to defend his use of the dangerous and abusive "therapy":

Speaking with Jan Markell and Jill Martin Rische on "Understanding the Times" this weekend, Bachmann said that he was angry that his clinic faced criticism after several reports surfaced about ex-gay therapy taking place there.

Bachmann insisted that "we are people of ethics" who were only attacked for trying to "speak truth," adding that "people will choose, they will ultimately choose what they are going to do with their life."

RWW [Right Wing Watch] has this partial transcript:

Once the far-left understood that we were actually creating a safe place, a place where people who said I have this issue with same-sex attraction, this desire. I'm a believer, I'm a person of faith and it's conflicting with my values systems. Anyone who would walk alongside and then encourage that person's values systems and their beliefs and bring that in alignment, that is like blasphemous to the other side. How dare you even consider being involved in someone who has decided or is desiring that to influence in any way shape or form another side in the book on this one?

No, seriously, he said that. 

"Ex-gay" therapy and "creating a safe place for LGBT people" are  mutually exclusive phenomenons.  If Ladybird were honest, he's admit that it's all about the money - and convincing himself that he's not gay as a goose.

Straight Spouses - Victims of the Christofascists' "Ex-Gay" Myth

Image - JaySi/Shutterstock.com

I frequently attack the lies disseminated by Christofascists as they continue their war against gays by promoting the "choice myth" and "ex-gay myth."   Having tried unsuccessfully to "change" myself for 37 years, I know the damage these lies do to ones life.  And that doesn't even factor in the number of LGBT individuals who ultimately take their own lives when they finally concede that they cannot change.  But their are additional victims about whom the "godly folk" don't give a damn: straight spouses who marry well intentioned opposite sex gays who are trying to be what church and family tell them that they are supposed to be.  And then there are the children of these doomed marriages.  They too are apparently acceptable collateral damage to the Christofascists eager to keep funds flowing into their coffers and push their anti-gay political agenda.  A piece in Slate looks at the straight spouses who ultimately are the victims of not their closeted spouses but instead they vile propagandist who continue to claim that gays can "change" even though all of the legitimate experts hold that change is not possible.  Here are article highlights:

After 16 years of marriage to a woman who would eventually come out as lesbian, Tom Teague made a promise to himself on a balmy October night in 2003: He would dance with every straight woman at the bar. Given the particularities of that evening, the odds were in his favor.

Teague, a reserved software development manager with a mop of white hair and a salt-and-pepper beard, was one of anywhere between 80 and 100 attendees at the annual beachside gathering in Florida for members of the Straight Spouse Network. He had arrived fresh from the memorial service for his mother, who had died of pancreatic cancer days earlier. But he sought solace from more than just her death. SSN had been his lifeline since his wife came out as a lesbian that January. More than ever, he needed to be with people who could understand him.

It was a welcome change. For a long time, life had been filled with more misery than magic. But that’s what the closet—a place as real for straight spouses as it is for the sexually struggling gay men and women they marry—will do to you.

Straight spouses are largely absent from the national conversation about gay marriage and the modern family. Certainly, it’s easier to talk about two moms or two dads who have been together from the start than to talk about why Mom left Dad for another woman, or why Dad left Mom for another man. . . . . But we need to include straight spouses in that conversation, because as tolerance for LGBTQ people spreads throughout the culture, more closeted spouses will undoubtedly come out. While for them, the light beyond those doors can be liberating, for the straight partners stumbling out behind them, it can be quite harsh.

Teague and Cloud, meanwhile, are in the process of forming their own member-supported organization, Overcoming Coming Out. Teague says OCO will take a more holistic approach to the familial reverberations of LGBTQ people’s decision to come out than SSN, which is geared toward their straight spouses . . .

Economist and New York Times columnist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz estimates that roughly 5 percent of the 151.8 million men recorded in the 2010 U.S. census are primarily interested in other men—and that millions live some version of a closeted life, including marriages to straight women.

Coming out is never easy, but it’s incalculably more difficult for the gay men and women who have joined a heterosexual marriage for one reason or another. Sometimes, they come to an understanding—or acceptance—of their sexual orientation only later in life. Perhaps they have, to some degree, known all along but wanted more than anything to be heterosexual (or to be perceived that way), and to have the unequivocal legal right to marry and have children. Others simply caved to family or social pressures. Many gay men deeply love their wives, but as Gravallese points out, “Society and everything we were taught told us that love equals sexual attraction.” Of course, that’s not always the case.

In terms of the healing journey, [gay spouses] are way ahead of the game,” says psychotherapist Kimberly Brooks Mazella, who works with as many as 15 straight spouses, mostly women, at a time in her McLean, Virginia-based practice about 20 minutes outside of D.C. Straight spouses comprise about half of her practice.

Mazella has been treating straight spouses since 1987—the year she became one herself. At the time, she confronted many of the same questions that her patients do now. “Was I ever really loveable? Was he faking it the whole time? It just cuts to the core,” she says. “For me, it was just a couple of years. Had I been married for 30 or 40 years, I think those questions would cut even more deeply.”

When Mazella helps her patients move through the stages of grief, she acknowledges that it can be an emotional balancing act at times. ​“Straight spouses are often struggling with competing emotional experiences—their own feelings of grief and loss, anger at the gay spouse’s betrayal, and compassion for their partner’s own painful journey,” she says. Empathy for gay spouses is not unusual among the straight spouse community. Degrees vary based on personal experience, as in any divorce. But ask a straight spouse, any straight spouse, what awaits him or her on the other side of the closet door. The most common answer is a deep sense of isolation.

“I can’t really fault him,” Christine says. She lays out the circumstances, including his upbringing in a conservative church that shunned homosexuality. If faced with the same, she feels she might have retreated into the closet. Not everyone in Christine’s life would agree. Encountering people who have encouraged her to turn bitter against her husband only compounds an already difficult situation, she says. She may be angry, but she does not want to be bitter. She prefers to approach the end of their marriage as they began it—as a team.

As long time readers know, my divorce was very bitter.  While she has remarried and is hopefully happy, I doubt that my former wife will ever believe that (i) I did indeed love her and (ii) that I never meant to hurt her.  It sickens me that the Christofacists continue to peddle lies that will lead others to suffer the pain and hurts that both she and I experienced.  Their sole goal is to make money, slander gays - or avoid admitting that the myths in the Bible are flawed and in far too many cases flat out untrue.  I truly hold nothing but contempt for these very vile individuals who should be treated as social pariahs. Instead the GOP prostitutes itself to them and the media continues to give them wholly undeserved deference even as the continue to damage countless lives.

Louisiana Federal Judge Gets It Wrong and Uphold Gay Marriage Ban

Judge Feldman - homophobe or self-loathing closet case?

While other judges at the state court level have upheld state bans on same sex marriage, since the ruling in United States v. Windsor, no federal judge or Court of Appeals has upheld a state ban until today.  Today, Louisiana Federal Judge Martin Feldman (pictured at left)not only upheld Louisiana's ban, but misconstrued Windsor and, worse yet, equated same sex marriage with opening the doors to legalized incest.  From his opinion, it is unclear if Feldman is simply an asshole, a homophobe or seeking to force the United States Supreme Court to make a definitive ruling by going against the flow of all the other rulings handed down since Windsor.  Whatever Feldman's agenda may be, he misconstrues Windsor which NEVER ruled on state bans because the sole issue before the Court in Windsor was Section 3 of DOMA which controlled FEDERAL recognition of same sex marriages legally performed in states with legalized same sex marriage.  Thus, any statements in Windsor on state legislation on marriage was what's called "dicta" - i.e., nonbinding because it is not central to the issue before the Court.  Most first year law students know better than to cite dicta as governing precedent.  A piece in Towleroad goes further into tearing Feldman's opinion apart.  Here are excerpts:

Louisiana Federal Judge Martin Feldman, a Reagan appointee, has upheld Louisiana's ban on marriage equality in a haphazard opinion remarkable only for its outdated language and subtly hateful rhetoric. Falling into traps we teach law students to avoid, Judge Feldman finds marriage equality as suspect as fathers marrying their daughters and improperly narrows the scope of the case to seeking a "right to same-sex marriage" rather than just "marriage." He suggests that being gay is a "lifestyle choice" and states that such a "choice" is butting heads with the democratic process, something he seems to think is infallible and beyond reproach.

Judge Feldman gets it wrong. The fight for marriage equality is a fight for marriage, not anything special or different than what opposite-sex couples enjoy. Being gay is not a choice and loving someone of the same sex is not a "lifestyle choice": it is love, it is human nature. And permitting gays to marry does not open the door to incestuous marriages, bestial marriages, or polyamorous unions. That kind of slippery slope argument doesn't pass the laugh test. Countless jurisdictions have made the decision to allow gays to marry, a legal policy decision that has no negative health or cohesion effects on society, without improperly permitting marriages that could be damaging to those involved and to children.

Judge Feldman is not the first judge to uphold a ban. He is not even the first to uphold a ban in the post-Windsor era. He is, however, the first federal judge to uphold the constitutionality of a state ban on marriage equality since Windsor, which complicates marriage's journey through the federal courts.

The decision today does not necessarily mean the Supreme Court will have to take one or several marriage equality cases; Judge Feldman could still be overturned by the Fifth Circuit. But it does have several effects:

(1) it makes a circuit split, a key reason the Supreme Court takes cases, more likely;
(2) it provides some measure of legitimacy to anti-equality forces by giving them a victory and resurrecting their outdated and hateful language; and
(3) it denies very real rights to very real families struggling in Louisiana.

Judge Feldman did not spew the kind of hate that comes from the National Organization for Marriage or the Liberty Council or the Westboro Baptist Church. Nor, on the other hand, was he even remotely supportive. Besides calling being gay a "lifestyle choice" (Error 1) and comparing gays marrying to incest (Error 2), he asserted that the right the plaintiffs sought was a "new right," one definitely not steeped in the democratic tradition of this country--namely, a right to same-sex marriage (Error 3).

As the [U.S. Supreme] Court noted in Lawrence v. Texas, when it overturned Bowers, Justice White got it wrong: to limit the discussion to sex is to ignore the reality of why people make love and why they have intimate relationships with others. Judge Feldman also got it wrong. We don't want to get "gay married;" we want to get married. There would be little drawing us to fight if all we were fighting for was our own separate-and-unequal institution of unions.

Today's opinion also assumes that once the supposed Pandora's Box of marriage is open, it won't stop until forks are marrying spoons and knives (Error 4).

Judge Feldman also gets the level of scrutiny wrong. He uses the lowest form of rational basis review, which allows the state to justify its discriminatory laws on "any conceivable basis" (Error 5). But the federal courts, including the Supreme Court in Lawrence and Windsor, have not been using that insanely low bar for some time.

What's more, the particular rational basis on which Judge Feldman hangs his hat -- "linking children to an intact family formed by their two biological parents" -- is so illogical as to be laughable (Error 6). How does banning gays from marrying actually ensure that more children will be born to and be raised by opposite-sex biological parents in wedlock?

It is hard to say what effects this wayward decision will have. The case will go up to the Fifth Circuit, which already has a marriage equality case from Texas (striking down the ban), but the mere fact that Judge Feldman upheld the ban will not necessarily weigh in the ban's favor up at the circuit court. Matters of law, as attorneys say, are reviewed de novo, from the beginning, regardless of the conclusions below. However, the mere fact of having an antiequality opinion on the books gives some measure of legitimacy to the right's outdated, hateful, antigay arguments. But we've come back from far worse antigay rhetoric from federal judges. For most of us, this will be a single opinion discarded to the trash bin soon. But for the residents of Louisiana, it is another wound that will take a lot longer to heal.

Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstedt - Latest in A Long Line of Self-Loathing Closeted Gays?

Be it politicians of church leaders regardless of their denomination, experience has demonstrated that the more shrill and ant-gay a politician or cleric is, the more likely that they are a self-loathing closet cases.  In the political realm we have had local Virginia Congressman Ed Shrock, Senator  Larry Craig  while among the clergy we have seen everything from Ted Haggard who used male prostitutes to anti-gay Catholic clergy who ultimately are exposed as closeted gays (or more often pedophiles) who prey on those under their tutelage or those powerless to rebuff their sexual advances.  In the latter category, as noted before on this blog, is Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstedt who, with perhaps a few exceptions, is among the most outspoken anti-gay members of the Catholic Church hierarchy.  Personally, I would love to see the allegations prove true in which event Pope Francis should strip Nienstedt of ALL of his priestly titles and toss him from the clergy, revoking his retirement in the process.  If the allegations prove true, Niensddet needs to be left penniless and devoid of any continuing Church derived support.   The Daily Beast looks at the scandal swirling around Nienstedt.    Here are highlights:

There may be something to be said for the theory that anger and hate stem from an individual recognizing in others a quality that they themselves possess, but don’t want to. One of the Catholic church's most vocal opponents of homosexuality is currently under investigation after allegations that he had multiple sexual relationships with priests, seminarians, and other men.

Minnesota archbishop John Nienstedt, 67, has spent years advocating against gay marriage. In 2013, speaking to a starry-eyed crowd at the Napa Institute, he said: “Today, many evil forces have set their sights on the dissolution of marriage and the debasing of family life. Sodomy, abortion, contraception, pornography, the redefinition of marriage, and the denial of objective truth are just some of the forces threatening the stability of our civilization.”

Nienstedt—he of the dramatic side-part and deer-in-the-headlights gaze—warned that “Satan knows all too well the value that the family contributes to the fabric of the good, solid society, as well as the future of God's work on earth.”

Beyond allegedly engaging in sexual behavior completely at odds with everything he purports to believe, Nienstedt is said to have punished those who turned him down. Commonweal, the Catholic magazine that broke the story of the investigation, quoted Jennifer Haselberger, a former top canon lawyer for the archbishop, saying he “also stands accused of retaliating against those who refused his advances or otherwise questioned his conduct.”

Nienstedt was not only alleged to have failed to report charges of criminal sexual behavior, but also to have taken steps to to hide the existence of such allegations altogether. Twin Cities law enforcement accused Nienstedt of failing to cooperate with investigators. The controversy caused Nienstedt’s top aide, Rev. Peter Laird, to quit after his suggestion that the archbishop resign was dismissed.

GOP Challenger Calls Lindsey Graham "Ambiguously Gay"

Are Republicans in South Carolina finally catching on the U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham, a/k/a the Palmetto Queen from time to time on this blog?  It seems that one of Graham's primary challengers is calling Graham "ambiguously gay."  Frankly, I'd say there is much ambiguity about Graham's queenly disposition.  About the only thing positive about him is at least he never married a beard to further his political career like too many other closeted Republicans.   The Raw Story looks at the cat fight in South Carolina.  Here are some highlights:

At a press conference held Thursday to announce their solidarity in opposing Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the four Republican candidates running against the incumbent senator referred to Graham as “ambiguously gay,” according to The State.

The news conference, held to announce a pledge between the challengers to support whomever ended up in a runoff with Graham, took an awkward turn when candidate Dave Feliciano stepped to the podium and addressed the issue of Graham’s sexuality.

“It’s about time that South Carolina (says), ‘Hey, we’re tired of the ambiguously gay senator from South Carolina, ” Feliciano said. “We’re ready for a new leader to merge the Republican Party. We’re done with this. This is what it’s about, all of us coming together and saying, one way or the other, one of us is going to be on that ballot in November’.”

Questions about Graham’s sexuality have  arisen previously but the senator has dismissed them.

Before speaking, Feliciano, a former police officer from Spartanburg with no previous political experience, signed a pledge with state Sen. Lee Bright, businessman Richard Cash, and attorney Bill Connor promising to endorse whichever candidate advanced to face Graham.
 
After the event, attorney Connor disavowed Feliciano’s comments as a personal attack and said that each candidate’s comments were their own.

Stating that he believes in free speech,  Cash added, “but I also believe in being civil and respectful. Mr. Feliciano’s comments were inappropriate and I disavow any association with them.”

However, both Cash and Connor said they still would honor the agreement, which they signed.

There are six GOP candidates who have announced primary challenges to Graham.  The other two, Columbia pastor Det Bowers and PR executive Nancy Mace, did not attend the news conference.

Connor may have disavowed the remark, but I suspect he secretly enjoyed it. :)