Sen. Mike Goschka
Sticks and stones may break my bones but names, well, it sucks to get called names.
But if Sen. Mike Goschka (R-Brant Township) can call my family "perverse" I can call him this week's Creep.
Goschka, who no surprise last week voted in favor of the anti-gay resolutions asking the Michigan Supreme Court to keep lawful employment benefits out of the hands of homos, described gay and lesbian relationships as "utter perversity" in a letter to a constituent.
"Homosexual and lesbian unions under any arrangement does not, and never will, constitute a family," Sen. Goschka wrote. "Simply put, no homosexual or lesbian union is ever appropriate; rather, it is utter perversity."
Goschka went on to say that gays shouldn't have equal employment benefits because "the Bible tells me so."
Demands by PFLAG for an apology from the senator were met with scorn.
"They should apologize for their lifestyle and tolerating something so terrible," Goschka said. "The lifestyle, the act itself, it is utterly perverse. It's not natural."
Granted, he told The Saginaw News he's "not a gay-bashing legislator," but that's what they all say, especially when they are. One does not actually have to pick up and swing a baseball bat at a gay skull to be a gay basher. The Triangle Foundation has for years maintained that "Words can lead to violence." Goschka's blanket statements are a classic example. His very words erase the humanity of gays and lesbians. He's telling folks, "It's okay to hate these people. They aren't even human." Coming from an elected leader, these comments are especially irresponsible and disgusting.
Who died and made this guy the family police? It's Goschka's cavalier attitude to gay and lesbian people that is "utterly perverse."
As I write this on National Coming Out Day, I wonder how many gays and lesbians Goschka actually knows. The real face of gay and lesbian people doesn't even come close to matching the sexually obsessed rhetoric of the anti-gay right. To guys like Goschka, gays are nothing but a tangled mess of sweaty, naked limbs, not actual people with actual jobs and actual kids and actual morals. And yet we're the perverts.
PFLAG has every right to ask the senator to apologize for their LGBT friends and family just as Goschka would have every right to demand an apology from someone who called his own family "perverse" and used a "Girls Gone Wild" video to prove their point.
One day it will be easier for gays and lesbians to "come out" but much harder for anti-gay bigots to do the same. In the meantime, come out to Goschka, especially if you live in Saginaw and Gratiot counties. He needs to hear from LGBT people and allies. Write him at P.O. Box 30036; Lansing, MI; 48909-7536, call him at 517-373-1760, or email [email protected].
