Remember the old Big Boy comic books? The ones you'd get at your local Elias Brothers' restaurant with the kiddie menu?
Oklahoma County Commissioner Brent Rinehart apparently does and thought it'd make a great campaign tool. Except instead of Big Boy, Dolly and that little dog, Rinehart's comic, mailed out to voters prior to the Aug. 5 primary, features himself as a super hero of sorts saving folks from homosexuals.
"I believe the homosexual agenda is an issue in this campaign," Rinehart told CNN anchor John Roberts on July 21. "I thought that the cartoon book was a novel approach…"
Oh, it's novel, all right.
One panel features a line of gay men holding signs. One man is barefoot, dressed in what looks like tight sweat pants and a halter top, one is wearing a toga, another has a goatee and wears a shirt with squares cut out to expose his navel. Then there's a guy who I think is supposed to be an elf, not to be confused with the guy in the Peter Pan outfit. The elf's sign reads, "I want to be a Boy Scout leader!"
Roberts asked Rinehart if he was homophobic. "Well, I'm not even sure as to what homophobic means," Rinehart responded. "But let's just keep in mind that we are in a cultural war … and I have seen pictures and I have seen viewings of gay pride parades … and that's the very same attire and the very same billboards that you see in these parades."
While the term "viewings" is usually reserved for dead people and movies, in this case it's appropriate since Rinehart doesn't seem to know any living gay people and the only ones he has seen have been on film.
Roberts asked, "Well, does that cultural war include gay bashing?"
"Well I don't know about gay bashing," Rinehart said, "the thing about it is you're not putting it in the full context of the cartoon book."
Rinehart then went on to explain that Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmonson, who filed charges against Rinehart for campaign finance issues in 2004, once sued the Boy Scouts over the issue of gays.
Edmonson is featured as a character in the comic holding a sign reading, "Gay rights now!" The idea of gays as Boy Scout leaders is described in Rinehart's comic as "a pediphile's [sic] dream come true."
Edmonson's response? "A drowning man tends to thrash about. Nothing Rinehart says is worthy of comment or response."
In other words, "Suck it, Rinehart."
When Roberts asked if this comic was "some desperate and weird attempt at payback," Rinehart's response leaned toward yes. "People can talk about the homosexual aspects of this in regards to how they're depicted, but no one has ever said anything about the truthfulness of my cartoon book," he whined. "How it exposes Drew Edmonson for his true agenda, how it exposes others here in county government for their true agenda. And you can attack the spelling of pedophile. To be honest with you, I don't necessarily care if I misspelled it or not."
Oh no, he definitely misspelled it. There's no "or not" here. There's also no more Rinehart on the Oklahoma County Commission. He was defeated in the Aug. 5 primary.
Score one for the homosexual agenda.
