I have to admit, I’m a little puzzled by Glenn Reynolds’ sudden outrage over the activist left’s “outing” of gay Republicans working on Capitol Hill. Reynolds then goes on to say, bizarely, that the campaign is the reason why the Democrats “aren’t ready” to govern as the majority party.

It’s hard to know where to begin with that.

First, it’s rather unfair to blame the Democratic party for what leftist blogs and leftist activists are doing (I’ve yet to see any evidence that the outtings are coming from anyone at the DNC, or any Democrats on the Hill).

Second, there actually is some evidence that GOP candidates and campaigns are directly involved in making sleazy accusations about the sex lives of Democrats in this campaign. Not to mention that these types of tactics have been GOP standard operating procedure for twenty years, now. Seems awfully odd and selective to suddenly be outraged by the tactics, now that they’re coming from the activist left. Seems odder to say they’re indicative of a party not ready to govern, given that the governing party that Reynolds supports is doing the same thing, and has perfected the tactic over the years.

Third, there actually are some colorable arguments (other than raw bigotry) for the left’s outing campaign. Many of these gay GOP staffers are working for the most vocally anti-gay members of Congress, members pushing for legislation — even a constitutional amendment — that make no bones about treating gay people differently than everyone else. Some have advocated legislation that goes yet further than that.

Now, you can certainly disagree with the tactic, and argue that the private lives of congressional staffers shouldn’t releavant to the public policy positions taken by their bosses (that generally would be my position). But it seems awfully disingenuous to say that the Democrats aren’t fit to govern because some leftist activists are outing a few gay Republicans, but then to give the Republicans a pass for not only engaging in the same tactics — and for their long history of such tactics — but also for pushing policies that openly discriminate against every homosexual person in the country. That would include vicious anti-gay marraige initiatives like the one on the ballot in Virginia (and for that matter, in Tennessee), measures generally supported and pushed by Republicans, and that some Republicans have flat out conceded are on the ballot solely to boost turnout from the GOP base.

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post yesterday about all of this. The article revealed that many of the most virulent anti-gay GOP members of Congress presently or in the past have had high-ranking homosexuals on their staffs. When interviewed, many of these staffers said the politicians are actually quite tolerant, even supportive of gay lifestyles.

n their day-to-day dealings, even the most conservative Republicans can display an ease with normalizing relations with gay people. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) ranks No. 3 in Senate leadership and has likened homosexuality to bestiality. A rumor erupted in summer 2005 that his chief spokesman, Robert Traynham, was gay. When Traynham confirmed the rumor, Santorum promptly rushed to his defense, issuing a release calling his aide “a trusted friend . . . to me and my family.”

After a breakup with his boyfriend, [one gay staffer] got “some relationship advice” from [disgraced GOP Rep. Bob] Ney over dinner at Morton’s with other staffers. Ney told him “how difficult it is to find the right match,” recalled Duncan.

So why the anti-gay rhetoric? One staffer explains:

“You have to separate the marketing from the reality. The reality is, these members are not homophobic. For the most part, they’re using this marketing to play to our base and stay in power. They have to turn out the votes,” said David Duncan, once a board member of the Lesbian and Gay Congressional Staff Association and a former top aide to Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), who last week pleaded guilty to corruption charges linked to the Abramoff scandal.

I don’t know about you, but I find fake, appeasing-the-base bigotry quite a bit more offensive than even the real thing. If these staffers are to be believed, Republicans like Ney and Santorum are projecting the anti-gay stuff, inflaming ingrained bigotry, and pushing for real laws that will adversely affect millions of gay people not because they actually believe in those policies, but because they want to stay in office.

Reynolds says the outting campaign “bespeaks an unprincipled hunger for victory and power at any cost” among the Democrats. That’s one explanation, I guess. I find the “exposing hypocrisy” explanation more plausible.

But if Republicans are taking anti-gay positions they don’t actually believe, what does that say about their own “hunger for power at any cost?”

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 21st, 2006 at 9:06 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.