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Creep of the Week: Bob Allen

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Anti-gay Republicans are dropping their pants – or, in this case, asking others to drop theirs – so fast I can barely keep up.
Florida Rep. Bob Allen was arrested on July 11 after knocking on a restroom stall door in a public park and offering the guy inside $20 for a blowjob. Sadly for Mr. Allen, the guy was an undercover cop who entered the restroom after seeing Allen lurking around.
According to Allen, the whole thing is a big misunderstanding (how big we don't know since the cop refused his offer). "I'm not in anyway associated with that they are saying," said Allen. "This is disgusting."
Yes, it is disgusting. Hypocrisy is like that.
According to 365Gay.com, "In the last session of the Florida legislature he sponsored a failed bill that would have tightened the state's prohibition on public sex. He also has been a supporter of amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage and has opposed a bill to curb bullying of gay students."
"In his seven years in the Legislature," reported the Florida Times Union, "Rep. Bob Allen of Merritt Island has built up a 92 percent approval rating with the Christian Coalition of Florida on issues like abortion, marriage and pornography."
Only 92 percent? Who's a guy gotta blow to get 100 percent from the Christian Coalition around here?
Allen is the author of the Lewd or Lascivious Exhibition Act, which died in the Florida House earlier this year. Perhaps he thought his little restroom dalliance would earn him some extra credit. Republicans are such over achievers.
Or it could just be that Allen is a very sad, repressed man who doesn't understand that whole "people in glass houses throwing stones" thing.
"It seems like the people who are the most vocal, the most condemning, the most judgmental, seem to be people struggling deeply with their own personal conflicts, and that's where the scandals come from whether it's the church or politics," Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, told the Times Union. "It's fairly routine. Find someone banging the drum of hysteria around an issue, and you'll find someone, generally speaking, who is wrestling with themselves internally."
Is it any wonder why people like Allen think homosexuality is a pathology? After all, if your sexuality is rooted in shame and fear, you'd probably hate it and yourself. Most gay folks have managed to overcome that little hurdle and no longer have to lurk in the shadows like the perverts they aren't. Stonewall, anybody?
Granted, Allen and his ilk probably see the pre-Stonewall era as the good old days and think Pride parades are nothing more than an opportunity for muscle bound men in banana hammocks to dance on rainbow colored floats.
Makes me think of that Dylan Thomas quote about drinking: "An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do."
It is, after all, super fun to make villains of folks who remind us of what we hate about ourselves, isn't it? And much easier than working on your own shit.

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Topics: Opinions
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