By R.J. Beaumia
When you insist on brewing tea with water from the Ganges River, don't be shocked to find a turd floating in your cup.
Gay Republicans need to keep this in mind when the GOP does things that offend them. When the Party tells them to stuff their donations or to shut down their booths or that their relationships with their partners are nothing more than a Tijuana donkey show, they should simply shut up and take it. They've earned it.
Lest they forget, just like joining a religion, membership in the Republican Party is a chosen lifestyle.
Several weeks ago, Kentucky Republican Senator Richard "Dick" Roeding chastised the University of Louisville for offering health insurance benefits to its gay and lesbian employees, a move to attract talent and remain competitive.
"I don't want to entice any of these people into our state. Those are the wrong kind of people," Roeding told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
When the Kentucky Log Cabin Republicans subsequently called for the senator's resignation, he called them "a bunch of queers." LCR then asked state GOP leaders to denounce Roeding's comments.
According to the Kentucky Post, Senate President David Williams, a Republican from Burkesville, said "I regretted the fact that he used the term and that he should refrain from using that term because it's inappropriate."
Williams said that Roeding apologized – to him!
"Dick Roeding has been a very effective legislator for Northern Kentucky, however, legislators, as we all, should refrain from using derogatory terms," Kenton County Republican Party Chairman Greg Shumate told the Post.
Republican Senator Damon Thayer of Georgetown said, "I don't agree with the U of L decision, but it's their decision and they'll have to live with it. That's really all I have to say on the matter," the Post reported.
Well, that's tellin' 'em, LCR! Such a stinging rebuke! Sort of the response the United States would have gotten had it sent Karl Lagerfeld to Afghanistan to slap the Taliban around with his fan.
A note to the Log Cabin Republicans: Roeding is right; you are a bunch of queers. You're an organization of fruit-fairy-faggot-pansies because the Republican Party says you are. You've sold your souls to them because you don't want to pay your fair share of taxes, don't believe that hard working people are entitled to decent wages, and don't have enough human decency to consider that every American citizen has a right to health care.
When they gas us and burn the corpses, who'll light the furnaces? You, baby, you!
Let's talk about Republican 'moderates' like John McCain, who's been making Jerry Falwell happy with his newfound piety and a large bottle of Jergen's lotion. Another "moderate" GOP contender is former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who stumped for fundie icon Ralph Reed in his failed bid for Lt. Governor of Georgia. George Pataki? He's the governor who appointed a member of the right-wing Federalist Society to the New York Court of Appeals, a move that probably ensured the recent sanctification of marriage discrimination in the Empire State.
Here in Michigan, will the LCR back Dick DeVos for governor? If so, they can add their name to an elite list of supporters; I'm sure that Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and Michigan Right to Life – all right-wing extremist groups, and all past recipients of generous donations from the DeVos family – will give the Loggers and the men whose asses they're eating a warm welcome indeed.
Whether or not he's actually a member of their organization (although he's spoken at their gatherings), Jeff Gannon is the quintessential Log Cabin Republican. If you recall, Gannon is the former $200-an-hour hooker who somehow got unlimited access to the White House as a reporter. He was on a first-name basis with the president's staff without ever having been thoroughly screened, and he didnit even belong to a legitimate news gathering organization.
Even New York Times reporter and columnist Maureen Dowd, who had covered the White House since 1986, had her pass revoked because she couldn't clear a security check at the start of Bush II. Only after White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was replaced by Scott McClellan, and a second security check was completed, did Dowd get her press credentials back.
White House connections to the conservative group for whom he was shilling gave Gannon the chance to pitch leading, softball questions to George Bush. Wondering if the administration could reach a working consensus with Congressional Democrats, Gannon once asked the president, "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"
After the Gannon scandal was uncovered – and roundly downplayed by America's conservative, corporate media – he denied he was a hooker, despite the fact that by then everyone on the planet had been tipped off on where to view several of his escorting websites. He even refused to publicly admit he was gay until about a year after the incident.
It's Gannon's duplicity, double-standards, hypocrisy, and blatant disregard for the law that characterize him, today's Republican Party and, by association, the LCR. And let's throw in a little racism for good measure.
In a recent Washington Blade article, Gannon weighed in on the reason gay black men suffer alarmingly high HIV rates. While some say that the intense homophobia of the African-American church and secular communities is to blame, he dismisses this theory.
Gannon's guess is that black men are getting infected because of "unsafe sex generally, promiscuity, contaminated drug paraphernalia and homosexual prison rape." Charming.
Here's some more wisdom on the topic from Mr. Bottom-for-Hire: "Conditions in the African-American culture make it a rich environment for a disease transmitted through irresponsible behavior," Gannon said, adding that it's the "glorified images of thugs, gang bangers, drug dealers and pimps" that lead to infection.
He noted that because blacks vote Democrat, they give themselves over to the Party's "mentality of victimhood," instead of the solid Republican values of "self-determination and entrepreneurship."
In other words, go sell Amway for Dick DeVos and you won't get AIDS.
So, LCR, next time Jeff Gannon is a speaker at one of your gatherings, be sure to serve him tea. Ask him if he'd like one lump, or two.
