Love, Republican Style

Men, women, boys girls, cops, even mules—is there anything a Republican won't screw, in between "defending marriage" and sending the sons of Democrats to die in Iraq for Bush's oil war?

It's almost like a contagious disease is spreading. Nearly every day, another Republican politician or religious leader—the very men who are most vocal in "defending" marriage from gays, and claiming that gayness is a "sin" (as opposed to a normal difference, like left-handedness)—finds himself arrested for soliciting anonymous sex from a plainclothes policeman in a public bathroom. And the commentators on the tube, anxious to allay fears that anyone in the audience might suddenly find himself compelled to run out to the nearest public restroom for a little pick-me-up, are quick to label airport bathrooms as "hotbeds of gay sex" (as a CNN commentator described them).

Well, I beg to differ. Just because some men have sex with each other in public bathrooms, does not make them "gay". Because being gay is about who you fall in love with, not who you have sex with. And to call anyone so filled with self-loathing that he's compelled to spend "three or four minutes" (another quote) with a stranger within the confines of an antiseptically-scented stall "gay" is to take that word about as far from its meaning as it's possible to get.

Today's Republican is Idaho's Larry Craig, a US senator. He propositioned a plainclothes (or perhaps no-clothes) police officer at a Minnesota airport, after "peering" at him over the stall wall for "two minutes". (You can read the arrest record here; it doesn't explain what the policeman was doing there. But that's another story.) But two weeks ago it was Glenn Murphy Jr., chairman of the Clark County Republican Party and recently-elected president of the Young Republican National Federation, who was crashing at a friend's house when he got an irresistible urge to pull down his sleeping friend's pants and blow him. This is an improvement only in that Murphy knew the man he was raping. As the Young Turksblog declared,

Are there any Republicans left in the country who are not gay or involved in a sex scandal? It doesn't seem like it anymore. I think I left the Republican Party just in the nick of time, while I still have my pants on.

The thing is, these Republicans are not gay. They may be homosexual or bisexual. But I think we need to make a rule: "gay" means out and proud, not closeted, self-loathing and desperate.

It begins with their extremist religion, which tells them—and they fall for it—that being gay isn't "natural". How can something that occurs in virtually every animal species, and in 10% of humans, not be natural?!? But that's their lie, and they're sticking to it.

The inevitable result: 10% of their numbers have urges they don't dare discuss, much less ponder. They try to solve the problem with prayer and denial instead of dating and partying.

They fail.

And, having failed, they deny. They lie about why they were caught, like Florida state representative Bob Allen, who justified his offering a policeman $20 to blow him by explaining that the policeman was black, and Allen therefore thought he was going to be beaten up. Then he had to explain to his black constituents that he wasn't a racist! (Can you imagine a professional politician making a statement like that? Apparently, Allen was less afraid of being seen as a bigot than he was of admitting his repressed homosexual tendencies.)

If they can't convince anyone the arrest was a mistake, they then say they were struck by "temporary homosexuality". While every gay man I know snickers at the very thought, these people are raised with the lie that homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice". So, even though they've struggled with these unwanted feelings their entire lives, these Republicans try to justify the lie by claiming that sudden, unexpected homosexual feelings just "overcame" them; but they've prayed to Jesus and after three weeks or so in a degayification center (as Republican evangelist Ted Haggard, former head of the influential and anti-gay National Association of Evangelicals, claimed), they are now "100% heterosexual".

Does sex really occur between men in public bathrooms? I'm sure it does, though I've personally seen little evidence of it. But, as much fun as sex is, what gay men really want—and here, I'm speaking for myself and the majority of gay men I know—what we really want isn't sex; it's love. And I don't know anyone who imagines that we're likely to find Mr. Right standing at a neighboring urinal.

(Actually, many gay men I know are pee-shy and are far too busy blushing and trying to hide their equipment from the straight guy next to them, to have a chance to sneak a peek at his.)

Now, in pre-Stonewall (1964) days, things were different. Few gay men had the opportunity to be "out and proud". I was a little kid then, but I've heard stories. Even in big cities, being gay was cause for job loss, eviction, beatings and deaths. While things aren't completely better in that regard, it's nothing like it used to be. For their own survival, gays of old had to resort to anonymous sex. But the guys involved, while they were indeed lying to everyone else, were not lying to themselves. You have to wonder if today's Republican closet cases are some weird kind of throwback to the early sixties, who like anonymous bathroom sex and are trying to keep gays in the closet simply to provide a steady supply of anonymous cock for them to prey upon.

But I think the only explanation that really makes sense is that they are, truly, so filled with self-hatred that, instead of apologizing to and divorcing their wives and finding a nice man to share their lives with, they are compelled to get caught having public sex in the most embarrassing circumstances possible. It's a subconscious punishment.

As if being Republican wasn't, in itself, enough.

Larry Craig

Larry Craig, Republican Senator from Idaho, offered to give a cop a handjob in an airport restroom.

Glenn Murphy, Jr.

Glenn Murphy, Jr., caught blowing a fellow Young Republican while he (the blowee, not the blower) slept.

BJ Doyle

Republican BJ Doyle, press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, arrested for attempting to seduce a child over the Internet.

Ted Haggard

Republican evangelist Ted Haggard had an attack of "temporary homosexuality"…for three years.

Mark Foley

Republican Representative Mark Foley, crusader against child abuse and exploitation, resigned when he was caught sending instant messages to Congressional pages asking for their cock sizes.

Ed Schrock

Ed Schrock, Republican Representative from Texas, caught on tape soliciting sex on a gay chat line.

Neal Horsley

Neal Horsley, a Republican who advocates the arrest of all homosexuals, admitted on Fox's Alan Colmes show that he has had sex with mules.

Philip Giordano

Philip Giordano, Republican mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut, arrested for forcing little girls ages 8 and 10 to perform oral sex on him.

Jeffrey Patti

Jeffrey Patti, Republican Committee Chairman, arrested for distributing "some of the most offensive material in the child pornography world"—a video of a 5-year-old girl being raped.

Matthew Glavin

Richard A. Delgaudio, Republican activist who was a big player in the Clinton impeachment, arrested multiple times for public indecency, one time fondling the crotch of the officer who was arresting him.

Richard A. Delgaudio

Richard A. Delgaudio, Republican fundraiser and Bush pioneer, was found guilty of child porn charges, but was put on probation by Republican judge.

Edison Misla Aldarondo

Edison Misla Aldarondo, Republican legislator, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for molestation of his daughter and her friend for an eight-year period starting when they were 9.

Randal David Ankeney

Randal David Ankeney, Republican activist, arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He faces 6 charges related to getting a 13-year-old girl stoned on pot and then having sex with her.

Yeah, these are exactly the people I would look to for maral guidance.

Self-loathing assholes.