QUEER QUOTE: Alabama LGBT Politician Threatens Hypocritical Legislators With Outing

Patricia Todd has for a longtime been the only openly LGBT elected official in the Alabama state legislature. With a federal judge striking down Alabama's state constitutional ban on marriage equality last week (and on Sunday issuing a 14-day stay on her decision from going into effect to allow the state to fruitlessly appeal to the 11th Circuit) a number of conservative politicians in her state have been spouting a lot of nonsense about "family values" and "defending the sanctity of marriage."

Representative Todd has had enough hypocrisy from politicians opposing marriage equality in the name of family values while breaking their own marriage vows and said these words which are today's Queer Quote.

"I will not stand by and allow legislators to talk about ‘family values’ when they have affairs, and I know of many who are and have. I will call our elected officials who want to hide in the closet out. It is pretty well known that we have people in Montgomery who are or have had affairs. I just want them to be careful what they’re saying, some of it might come back to stick on them."

I have always been in favor of outing closeted politicians in the interests of media fairness. I think it is also a reasonable tactic when faced with hypocrisy. However, I also know that legislation gets accomplished through relationships with colleagues and Rep. Todd may have made herself less able to work with some colleagues because of these words. But I think it was worth it, and I love these other words she said: "But I know I’m on the side that is going to win and I’m sorry they’re so ignorant."

Sometimes you just gotta tell the Truth!

Hat/tip to Joe Jervis and New Civil Rights Movement

QUEER QUOTE: Aaron Schock (R-IL) Outed (Again)

Another year, another round of gay rumors about a closeted, homophobic Republican politician. This time the politician in question is Aaron Schock, a.k.a. The Congressman With Abs, who is a Republican representative of the 18th Congressional District of Illinois. Schock has long been the subject of rumors about his sexuality, possibly because he is attractive enough that he catches attention of most gay men, and the fact that he seems more inordinately interested in his appearance than most politicians.

He is also a target because he has repeatedly expressed anti-gay positions and voted to enact those opinions as public policy.

Former CBS Reporter Itay Hod posted the following comments to Facebook, which will work as today's Queer Quote:

people always say, no one has the right to out anyone. that coming out is a private matter. i disagree. as you can imagine, not a very popular opinion. but bear with me.  

here's a hypothetical: what if you know a certain GOP congressman, let's just say from Illinois, is gay... and you know this because one of your friends, a journalist for a reputable network, told you in no uncertain terms that he caught that GOP congressman and his male roommate in the shower... together. now they could have been good friends just trying to conserve water. but there's more. what if this congressman has also been caught by tmz cameras trolling gay bars. now what if you know that this very same guy, the darling of the gop, has also voted against repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, opposed the repeal of doma, is against gay marriage; and for the federal marriage amendment, which would add language to the us constitution banning gay marriage and would likely strike down every gay rights law and ordinance in the country? 

Are we still not allowed to out him? 

As I have said before many times, I do believe in outing people. In this case, things have become even more interesting  since Rep. Schock responded to this Facebook posting going viral and the associated increased attention to his social media posts along with by making his Instagram account private.

I do not have a problem with someone outing Aaron Schock, but I do have a problem with reporting about someone's sexuality without using the same journalistic ethics that one would use to report any other fact. Hod is not reporting any first-hand knowledge that he has of Schock's sexuality (which is obviously difficult to obtain) but he also does not have multiple identifiable sources supporting the assertion that Schock is gay.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: "Boy Genius" Ronan Farrow Is Gay

Ronan Farrow is Mia Farrow's son, and is either the son of Frank Sinatra or Woody Allen. He is 25-years-old and has already graduated from Yale Law School (4 years ago!), won a Rhode Scholarship and served in the Obama administration. And apparently he is gay, according to Vice, although you wouldn't know that from recent media articles:

It's not as obvious to me that Farrow's sexuality needed to be mentioned in the Times profile, though again there's a dog-whistle issue: "When he wasn’t busy navigating world events, [Farrow] was adding some panache to the Washington social scene, often appearing at political fetes with Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter”; and "he is guarded about his private life, suggesting a persona more carefully calibrated than he lets on." OK, maybe that's a little louder than a dog-whistle. It’s possible that the piece’s author, Michael Schulman, who often writes about gay celebrities, couldn't get anyone to verify Farrow's sexuality on the record. 

[...] 

As a gay man, I find Farrow's sexuality highly relevant—he's literally the gay Mia Farrow! It’s only by accepting a homophobic logic that we can perform the mental acrobatics required to decide sexuality should be off the table. It’s just as interesting as any other detail, and no more embarrassing. As a New York court ruled last year, outing is a banality—identifying someone as a homosexual never qualifies as defamation, even if it isn’t true.

I also find Farrow's sexuality relevant. And I support "outing," although I prefer the term Michelangelo Signorile used at the time: "equalization." To me the point is to equalize the treatment of celebrities' homosexuality with their heterosexuality by the media. The notion that homosexuality is some horribly shameful secret while tabloids will reveal every other piece of information about a person is just simply wrong in my opinion. One can argue that nobody's private sexual behavior should be discussed in tabloids, but if you're going to talk about it when straight people do it, I insist you give LGBT people the same treatment.

QUEER QUOTE: Janelle Monae Avoids Defining Her Sexuality

Janelle Monae appeared on Saturday Night Live this weekend, reflecting the avant garde musician's increasingly heightened profile in  the popular zeitgeist. However Joe.My.God describes her answers to questions about her sexuality as "Latifah-esque" (referring to Queen Latifah who has moved from being only known as rap musician to appearing in Oscar award-winning movies to hosting her own daily daytime television  talk show). Latifah, who is also now know by her name Dana Owens is widely believed to be a closeted lesbian.

This is what Monae said recently in response to "The Question":

“Women are amazing€ and so are guys. There’™s nothing wrong with being bisexual, there’s nothing wrong with being lesbian or gay. I am an advocate. I have friends who are in same sex relationships and I feel love has no sexual orientation. Love has no religious belief. Love is the purest and most important thing we can possess for ourselves and for others. €œI keep my personal life very much to myself. I want everybody to focus on my music. I also don’t want to let anybody down. I want women to still be attracted to me. Go get my album! I want men to still be attracted to me so I have to be political in this. So I can’€™t really tell y'all.”

If someone has an example of a straight celebrity who went through a stage of refusing to define their sexuality in public and then was revealed to actually be completely heterosexual, I would be happy to hear that. It just seems like there are numerous examples of celebrities who claimed they did not want to reveal their sexuality and when it eventually is revealed (celebrities really just need to acknowledge that the price of fame is their loss of privacy in this area) it has always been because they are a member of the LGBT community. Names like Sean Hayes, George Michael, and Ricky Martin all come to mind immediately.

We'll see if Monae follows that trajectory or if she follows Latifah's cowardly path.

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) Outed As Gay

The number of conservative Republican politicians who vote against LGBT equality yet are outed as members of the LGBT community has increased by one. John Barrasso, the Republican U.S. Senator from Wyoming has been outed as a gay man by Mike Rogers, who has an impeccable record of being correct.

This weekend Rogers posted this tweet:

Curiously, when contacted by media outlets and blogs Rogers just says "my tweets stand on their own."

New Civil Rights Project provides a brief profile of Sen. Barrasso:

Barrasso, who earned a zero percent rating from HRC, voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He also voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women this year, which includes protection not only for women, but for “underserved populations” including sexual minorities and Native Americans. And he voted against the bipartisan expanded background checks bill that 91 percent of all Americans support.

Sen. Barrasso is also the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, which pretends to be a legislative think tank, publishing policy papers like “Obamacare Exchange Opens Door to Fraud and Identity Theft,” and “Democrats Target Family Farms for Death Taxes.”

Senator Barrasso, 61, is a Presbyterian, divorced, remarried, and has three children. He is up for re-election in 2016. He is on Facebook and Twitter.

Sheesh. With the presence of openly lesbian Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, barely closeted Barbara Mikulski and previously outed Mark Kirk could LGBT people be actually over-represented in the United States Senate?

Celebrity Friday: Cheyenne Jackson Splits From Husband

38-year-old openly gay actor Cheyenne Jackson (Behind the Candelabra, 30 Rock and Glee) has separated from his physicist husband Monte Lapka after nearly 2 years of marriage, ending their 13-year relationship. People magazine reports the news:

"Cheyenne Jackson and his husband Monte Lapka have mutually decided to divorce. The couple have been together for 13 years and were married in N.Y. State two years ago. It is an amicable parting and, understandably, a private matter," a rep for the actor tells PEOPLE. 

Although this is sad news for the couple, I am happy to see that there is equally obnoxious reporting on the private lives of LGBT celebrities as there is for straight celebrities. Years ago this would have been called "outing" but it is yet another sign that the good guys are winning the kulturkampf when gay divorces are being reported as matter-of-factly as gay marriages. This is America, we're gonna have a lot of both!

Hat/tip to TowleRoad

Queer Quote: Margaret Cho Totally Outs JohnTravolta

Not like it hasn't happened before, but John Travolta has been outed again, apparently this time by comedian Margaret Cho. While on tour in Australia, Cho is quoted as having said this:

"I’m going to get in trouble, but I’ll just tell you. He is so gay. John Travolta is so gay. He’s not just gay. He doesn’t just like men. He is like Oscar Wilde gay. Like Lord Byron gay. That kind of crazy, incredibly flamboyant gay. I know him well because I did a movie with him and worked with him for a year. I feel bad for him; because I know he would be much happier if he could just come out. But he can’t."

Rumors about Travolta have circulated for literally decades. However, he is a prominent member of the Church of Scientology and they are well-known for controlling the public and private lives of their celebrity members.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Queer Quote: Jodie Foster Coming Out Speech

Jodie Foster gave a speech at the Golden Globes on Sunday night which has been reverberating through the LGBT blogosphere and celebrity circles.

The key parts of her speech which people have been reacting to so viscerally are:

"So while I’m here being all confessional, I guess I have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public. So, a declaration that I’m a little nervous about but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh Jennifer? But I’m just going to put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I’m going to need your support on this. 

"I am single. Yes I am, I am single. No, I’m kidding — but I mean I’m not really kidding, but I’m kind of kidding. I mean, thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a wolf whistle or something? [Audio is silent for seven seconds] ... be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now I’m told, apparently that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show. 

"You know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No, I’m sorry, that’s just not me. It never was and it never will be. Please don’t cry because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard or I’d have to spank Daniel Craig’s bottom just to stay on the air. It’s not bad work if you can get it, though."

The problem with this aspect of her speech is that she is basically teasing the media about a "confessional" that she is "nervous" about making which will be "loud and proud" and then instead of actually saying "I'm a lesbian" or "I'm a single lesbian" or "I'm single and I'm looking for woman" she just says "I'm single." This inability to actually ever use the words "gay" or "lesbian" in her entire rambling peroration has most definitely frustrated many, many lesbian (and other LGBT) observers.

In addition, she is also claiming that she "already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age." Really? Jodie Foster has been known in several circles as a lesbian for decades and has therefore been a legitimate target of people who support outing (such as myself) since at least 1991. The first time she can really be considered as being officially out of the closet is probably 2007, when she made a speech at one of the many, many awards ceremonies at which she has been honored and mentioned the main person in her life was named Cydney. Since that was merely over 5 years ago and she has been in the public eye for over 40 years (since the age of 3!) it is at the very least hypocritical for her to claim that she did not actively hide, conceal and obfuscate her sexual orientation for decades while she was near the pinnacle of Hollywood movie making. (This is a woman who has won two Best Actress Oscars--for 1988's The Accused and 1991's The Silence of the Lambs!)

But then her speech moved from merely being hypocritical to literally being offensive when she basically disparages other celebrities who have come out by saying that "ever celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime time reality show" by equating being honest about your private life to creating a spectacle of one's life like "the Honey Boo-Boo Child." This is simply wrong and incorrect. There are many, many different ways to come out, and to say that everyone who comes out (i.e. discusses "the details of their private life" with the public) is acting like Honey Boo Boo is patently offensive and projects a negative portrayal of people who do come out matter-of-factly, like Anderson Cooper, Ellen Degeneres, Sir Ian McKellen and Rosie O'Donnell. (Although it should be remembered that almost all of these people were also rumored to be LGBT before they publicly acknowledged it.) No one was asking Foster to make a reality show about her family life, but just acknowledge the reality that she loves (and lives with)  women.

There are still people who are widely believed to be gay who are at the same level of fame as Foster (such as 2-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey) who are not out and who are also targets of outing. (There are many many more who may or may not be gay but who are rumored to be such and whom we probably won't know definitively about until after they die or at least decades from now.) Foster's speech will not make things any easier for those members of the Hollywood elite who still think being publicly honest about being gay is something which should not be done, which is odd considering the clear over-representation of people who are LGBT in positions of power and celebrity in Hollywood! (One of the most bizarre aspects of the Celebrity Closet is that very often it is the LGBT staff and hangers-on around the Celebrity that encourages them to stay in the closet.)

She then went on to say, the following, which I am designating as today's Queer Quote:

"There is no way I could ever stand here without acknowledging one of the deepest loves of my life, my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life, my confessor, ski buddy,consigliere, most beloved BFF of 20 years, Cydney Bernard. Thank you, Cyd. I am so proud of our modern family. Our amazing sons, Charlie and Kit, who are my reason to breathe and to evolve, my blood and soul. And boys, in case you didn’t know it, this song, all of this, this song is for you."

The  interesting thing about this second quote is that she acknowledges the existence of her "ex-partner in love" with whom she raised her two kids. But, because "Cydney" sounds like it could be a male name, many of the millions of people watching world wide may not have realized that Jodie Foster was revealing publicly the existence of her longtime same-sex relationship. Thus as a big coming out speech it is not very effective, because it takes an inferential step to deduce the homosexuality of the speaker.

Regardless, it was an important statement to make, and overall it will have a net positive impact on "teh gays" but it would have been a much more effective statement if she had made it 2 decades ago when she was a more relevant part of the media elite. I would be shocked if the percentage of people under the age of 25 years old who even know who Jodie Foster is and can name more than two of her movies is above 10%. Frankly, there was really no excuse for the other aspects of her speech which I have analyzed above as exceedingly problematic.

West Indian Born Lt. Gov (R-FL) Faces Lesbian Scandal

Jennifer Carroll is the Lieutenant Governor of Florida, and the first Black, female Republican ever elected to statewide office in the state. Carroll, 53, was born in Trinidad is now facing a scandal involving a former employee in her office named Carletha Cole who claims that she found her boss in a compromising position with another woman.

According to the Miami Herald:

In the filing, Cole contends that she witnessed Carroll and a top aide, Beatriz Ramos, in a "compromising position" inside Carroll's office, that Carroll's chief of staff secretly recorded conversations routinely at the direction of those working for Gov. Rick Scott, and that the trash can at Cole's desk might have been deliberately set ablaze following an argument between her and Ramos. 

Cole also said Ramos was living at Carroll's home and at one point she was ordered by Ramos to find adjoining hotel rooms for Carroll and Ramos when they traveled. Cole said that she was "scolded" by an agent with Carroll's security team when she placed Ramos next door to Carroll when the lieutenant governor and her husband traveled last summer to Puerto Rico. The agent told her to not do it again, Cole says, although he did not explain why. 

Carroll, a former Navy officer who is also a mother of three, says the allegations are all lies.

However, this is not all that Carroll is saying about the allegations that the married mother has a "gal pal." She also claims that the allegations can not be true because black women who look like her do not "engage in relationships like that."

"The problem is that when you have these accusations that come out, it's not just one person you're attacking. It's an entire family. My husband doesn't want to hear that. He knows the type of woman I am. I mean, my kids know the type of woman I am. For twenty-nine years - I'm the one that's married for twenty-nine years. The accuser is the one that's been single for a long time. So usually black women that look like me don't engage in relationships like that."

 Really? Really? What do you think a lesbian looks like? As TransGriot would say: "Shut up, fool!"


Hat/tip to Rod 2.0.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/11/v-fullstory/2891120/apnewsbreak-ex-carroll-aide-alleges.html#storylink=cpy

Saturday Politics: Closeted L.A. Congressman Retires

David Dreier, has been in the U.S. House since 1981

David Dreier has represented the 26th Congressional District of California as a Republican since 1981. He has also been repeatedly outed in the media as a closeted gay man. Due to redistricting in California, Dreier's district was carved into thirds and section of it moved into other districts which were heavily Democratic, leaving the longtime incumbent with no U.S. House district in which to seek re-election, so he announced his retirement from Congress this week.

Dreier is the sixth California House member to announce plans to retire when his term ends, shaking up a delegation that has built up clout on Capitol Hill because of its stability over the years.

[...]

Dreier's announcement was not a surprise. The California Citizens Redistricting Commission's new map collapsed his district into three new ones.

Two of the newly drawn districts — both based in the San Gabriel Valley — are solidly Democratic with large ethnic voter populations.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) is running in one with a strong concentration of Asian voters, and Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk) has moved into the other, which includes Dreier's San Dimas home and where Latinos make up 46% of registered voters.

The 59-year-old, unmarried Congressman has long been  rumored to gay. It will be interesting to see how long it takes him to come out of the closet officially after retires.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God.

Celebrity Friday: Barbara Mikulski Avoiding DOMA Repeal?

U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, is the
second-longest serving woman in Congress in history

As support for legislative repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act gains steam with hearings being held in the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, attention has begun to fall on liberal members of the Democratic caucus who have inexplicably not yet co-sponsored the Respect for Marriage Act (S. 598/H.R. 1116). For example, in Maryland where marriage equality supporters are expected to move forward with another attempt to legalize marriage equality in 2012 with the strong support of the state's Governor after 2011's heartbreaking defeat, only one of that state's two Democratic U.S. Senators is on record in support of the Respect for Marriage Act or marriage equality itself.There are currently 18 US Senators who support marriage equality and there are 28 U.S. Senators co-sponsoring the DOMA repeal bill.

It's a perfectly reasonable position to be against DOMA (which even in 1996 was a truly shocking federal intrusion into an area of law ceded to the states for hundreds of years rooted in animus towards homosexuality) without publicly endorsing marriage equality, that's the current position of the President of the United States.

What's so surprising is that the Senator from Maryland who is supporting DOMA repeal is Benjamin Cardin, not Barbara Mikulski. Mikulski is a longtime liberal and is currently the longest serving female member of Congress. If she is still in office after March 12, 2012 she will become the longest serving female member of Congress of all time. She has also been widely rumored to be a closeted lesbian for decades. Regardless of what her sexual orientation, it is becoming unacceptable for prominent members of the Democratic party, especially someone as senior as Mikulski not to take a position in favor of marriage equality, especially when it is an important issue for her state and there is federal legislation pending before the United States Senate right now.

U.S. Senate Passes DADT Repeal Bill 65-31!

Although passage was a foregone conclusion after the 63-33 cloture vote earlier today, the United States Senate completed its legislative work on a standalone DADT repeal bill, passing the measure 65-31, with 8 Republicans joining 55 Democrats and 2 Independents. No Democrats voted against repeal, although Joe Manchin of West Virginia (who was just elected in a special election and is up again in 2012 for a full term) did not vote and issued a statement saying he did not favor DADT repeal at this time.

ANALYSIS
Interestingly, recently outed Mark Kirk (R-IL) who had voted against repeal in the House, and voted against invoking cloture last Friday, voted for cloture and the bill this time. Other Republican surprises were recently re-elected Richard Burr of North Carolina voting in favor as well as retiring George Voinovich of Ohio. Moderate Republic Richard Lugar of Indiana surprised many observers by voting against repeal. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas was the only woman in the United States Senate to vote against DADT repeal.

100% of Democrats voting (55 of 55) voted in favor of LGBT equality. 21% of Republicans voting (6 of 37) voted against LGBT equality. 94% (16 of 17) female Senators voted in favor of LGBT equality.

Here's the roll call vote on DADT Repeal:

YEAs ---65
Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Brown (R-MA) Burr (R-NC) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Coons (D-DE) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Ensign (R-NV) Feingold (D-WI)	Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kerry (D-MA) Kirk (R-IL) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK)	Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (D-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (D-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---31
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID)	DeMint (R-SC) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) LeMieux (R-FL) Lugar (R-IN)	McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 4
Bunning (R-KY) Gregg (R-NH)	Hatch (R-UT) Manchin (D-WV)

Outed Ill. Senate Candidate Kirk (R) Caught Discussing Voter Suppression

U.S. Representative Mark Kirk, who has recently been outed as a gay man by blogger Mike Rogers, and is currently in a very tight race with Alexi Giannoulias for the Illinois Senate seat once held by Barack Obama has been caught on tape discussing the long-running, illegal Republican practice of minority vote suppression.

Talking Points Memo reports:

Kirk's campaign confirmed the candidate was secretly taped last week as he was talking about his anti-voter fraud effort.

"These are lawyers and other people that will be deployed in key, vulnerable precincts, for example, South and West sides of Chicago, Rockford, Metro East, where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat," he said in the audio posted on YouTube.

As TPMMuckraker has reported, accusations from conservatives that ineligible voters are fraudulently stealing elections for Democrats have continued to fly in the 2010 campaign cycle, despite the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud. "Voter fraud" has been the rally cry for conservative groups seeking to make it more difficult to cast ballots and suppress minority voter turnout.

Kirk is widely considered the most moderate of the potential Republican senators to take office in January 2011. What's interesting here is that despite being known as a closeted homosexual, he is still a Republican at  heart, with the opposition to minority voting that that entails. Another example of the surprises intersectionality can produce!

Eddie Long Says He Will Fight Charges

Eddie Long, the Atlanta-area Black minister who is the target of four lawsuits claiming "coercive sexual activities" between Long and four teenaged Black men, has announced that he will fight the charges. The story is on the front page of today's New York Times.

Writer and Black gay AIDS activist Craig Washington has penned a brilliant "A Sermon for Bishop Eddie Long" which ends with this crescendo:

Whether or not Long actually committed the acts of which he was recently accused, this much is true: He is assuredly guilty of engendering fear and hatred of LGBT people among thousands. He has convinced countless numbers of gays that they are sinners whose salvation rests on becoming "reconditioned" into heterosexuality. Such toxic teachings reinforce the stigma that compromises HIV-prevention efforts as well as our mental and physical health.

One who cannot face aspects of himself that he despises will train that animus on another whom he regards as his opposite. Did he sell out countless individuals in order to throw congregants off the scent of his own hunt, the exploitation of young men? Was there a point when, at first, a few and then many knew what was happening and said nothing? How long will we enable the abuse perpetrated in word and deed by our pastors? When will we dare to speak the ugly, inconvenient truth even when we are afraid?

This story of this sullied bishop serves overdue notice to Christians across the nation who have bought and sold snake oil presented as holy water. It is a foreclosure warning to every black male pastor who deems the church his castle, and the women, gays and young who build it as no more than chattel to serve his appetites. It is a subpoena, a calling to account for all black men who endorse patriarchy as the most legitimate form of power in our communities. It is a stained diary page brought to light. It is truth. Amen. 

Pow!

UPDATED 10:55AM PDT 09/26/2010:
Via Rod 2.0 comes this brief statement from Eddie Long to the press:

"On the advice of counsel, I am not going to address the allegations and attacks against me, again as I stated earlier, I want this to be dealt with in a court of justice and not in the court of public opinion."

Celebrity Friday: Bishop Eddie Long

The stories about Bishop Eddie Long have become too prominent to not comment on at this blog. He is the well-known African-American pastor and head of an Atlanta-area mega-church who was accused this week  by three young men of forcing them to have sex with him after going on long vacation trips with them.

The video above is from a press conference announcing the filing of lawsuits by two of the accusers.

According to CBS News:

In lawsuits filed this week, three men who were members of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church claimed Long coerced them into sexual relations with gifts including cars, cash and travel when they were 17 or 18 years old. The sprawling church in Lithonia, Ga., about 18 miles outside of Atlanta, counts politicians, celebrities and the county sheriff among its members and hosted four U.S. presidents during the 2006 funeral of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow, Coretta Scott King.

One of the claims in the lawsuits is that Long had sexual contact with the young men, who were enrolled in New Birth's ministry for teen boys, during trips he took them on in the U.S. and abroad. Gillen said the travel was part of a mentoring program that other young men also participated in.

Recently, pictures of Eddie Long taken by his phone which he sent to the men have surfaced, showing him wearing athletic wear or spandex. See below:

I think the pictures speak for themselves. Be prepared to become even more of a celebrity than you were before, "Bishop" Eddie Long!

Hat/tip to Wonder Man.

Outed Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman Comes Out

Ken Mehlman, 44, a longtime Republican political operative, protege of the truly odious Lee Atwater and former chair of the Republican National Committee, Political Director in the George W. Bush White House and campaign manager of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election effort has finally acknowledged his homosexuality publicly, after being outed by Mike Rogers years ago and in his excellent Outrage (2009) documentary, which just happens to be up for an Emmy award this weekend September 19th.

The impetus for Melhman's revelation (by Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic) was his decision to become involved in a huge fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the sponsors of the Olson-Boies federal lawsuit against Proposition 8.

The reactions to Mehlman's announcement, especially from the LGBT community have generally been vitriolic, with Joe.My.God titling his post "Repulsive Anti-Gay Quisling Homophobic Scumbag Asshat Closeted Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman Has Come Out" while Dustin Lance Black posted to facebook that it was "an incredible coup for AFER."

I find my thoughts closer to Joe's than Dustin's, which is why I have created the tag "quislings" especially for this occasion. I think Equality California's executive director Geoff Kors gets pretty close to the right response with:

"One of the things I sincerely hope Ken Mehlman has done or will do is to explain to George W. Bush how denying LGBT people equality causes real harm and how the GOP's anti-equality platform and campaigns lead to teen suicides and hate crimes. I hope he explains how bigotry impacted him and that he has asked George W Bush to join his wife Laura in supporting marriage equality. If he can convince Bush to publicly change his position that would be powerful. And I hope he shares with the public how the GOP used animus towards gay people to pass anti-marriage state constitutional amendments, as that will bolster the federal Prop 8 case. What he does to undo the damage he caused can be a part of his legacy and working with AFER to help overturn Prop 8 is a good start. We all have to hope he goes all out and proves he is a talented political strategist -- this time on the side of equality."

What do you think?

Formerly Closeted State Sen. Ashburn (R) Speaks

Patt Morrison (Occidental College alumna and KPCC radio host) spoke with state Senator Roy Ashburn for the Los Angeles Times about his life as secretly gay man voting as a Republican state senator against every piece of LGBT legislation he saw (and Equality California has sponsored and had enacted nearly 50 pieces of legislation since 2002) before being caught driving under the influence from a Sacramento gay bar with an un-named male companion last year.

To his credit, Ashburn came out publicly soon after and has voted in favor of LGBT equality since.

Here's an excerpt from his interview which appeared in today's paper:

Barry Goldwater had a gay grandson and didn't think government had any business in anybody's bedroom. But the recent brand of Republicanism has championed anti-gay issues.

I truly believe the conservative philosophy as embraced by Goldwater: that the government has no role in the private lives of the citizens. In the 1980s, there was a coming together of the religious right and the Goldwater right, sort of a marriage of convenience. It propelled Ronald Reagan to the presidency. Reagan never repudiated that but — this is just my view — I don't think he really embraced it either. In no way do I want to put down people of strong religious convictions; I happen to have very strong religious beliefs myself. But it was a merger of those two, and the religious [right's issues] were about same-sex rules, same-sex marriage, abortion, gun rights, these sort of core, litmus-test issues.

Did you feel uneasy with that combination? You did help to organize and speak at a rally in 2005 against a legislative bill sanctioning same-sex marriage.

How I ever got into that is beyond me. I was very uncomfortable with that, and I told one of my confidantes, "I'm never doing that again." It was not what I wanted to do, it wasn't me, but I helped to organize and lent my name.

A lot of people, gay or straight, are probably wondering why you voted even against issues like insurance coverage for same-sex partners.

The best I can do is to say that I was hiding. I was so in terror I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic "no" vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation. This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I'm truly sorry for that.

It's well worth the read and shows why closeted gay Republicans should be outed as often as possible. It makes a difference.

Illinois Senate Candidate Mark Kirk (R) Outed!

Mike Rogers, the man who outed Senator Larry Craig in 2006, more than a year before the Senator was arrested in a Minneapolis airport for his "wide stance" has today outed another Republican member of Congress, Mark Kirk, who also happens to be the GOP nominee to take over Barack Obama's old Senate seat representing Illinois!

Kirk is considered a moderate Republican, but he did not vote to repeal DADT in the House recently (only 5 Republicans voted against DADT repeal: Charles Djou of Hawaii), Joseph Cao of Louisiana, Judy Biggert of Illinois), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, and Ron Paul of Texas) leading Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT group, to finally endorse Alexi Giannoulias, Kirk's Democratic opponent for the Illinois U.S. Senate seat.

Now, Kirk joins other Republican congressional hypocrites like David Dreier (R-CA) who have been outed by Mike Rogers but vote against LGBT equality. Rogers is never wrong, and this is what he says about Kirk:

In an effort to move the base in the Illinois Senate race, Kirk decided to tack right and that means throwing the gays (like him) under the bus. And once he voted that way, the phone began to ring. Not one or two, or three but 5 separate individuals contacted me about the now divorced Mr. Kirk. (Mr. and Mrs. Kirk were married from 2001 to 2009, the marriage produced no children.)

Within hours of the DADT repeal vote I was contacted by two people who knew Kirk from his college days.

"In law school in DC everyone knew Mark was gay," the first source told me. I explained that the information was intriguing, it would not be enough to go on. He continued, "But I had sex with him a number of times." Well, now we're onto something I thought. "Could someone verify for me that you knew Kirk and went to school with him?" I asked. "Yes" was the swift reply. "Could you recall personal details about Kirk that others may not know?" "Yes," he said.

And he did.

The next source claimed to have gone to undergraduate school with Kirk. I asked for proof that he and Kirk were in school together and once that was shared with me, I met with the source. The source introduced me to a man who had also been friends with Kirk in college. They both shared with me their interactions with Kirk, including one sexual in nature. The source who claimed to have sex with Kirk described personal details about the House, um, er, "member." The description was the same as the first source.

[...]

Then Kirk became a hypocrite. Kirk voted against repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, despite his being a closeted gay man in the military. As a Commander in the Navy Reserves Kirk has voted to keep a policy that if he were investigated under he would be tossed.

Recently we learned that it's not just his being a closeted gay man that Kirk lies about; he has a habit of making up awards supposedly given to him by the Navy.

Boo yah!

LAT Editorial on "gay anti-gay legislator" Roy Ashburn

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-ashburn10-2010mar10,0,4070153.storyThe Los Angeles Times has an incisive editorial on the curious case of GOP State Senator Roy Ashburn, the anti-gay legislator who was caught driving under the influence leaving a Sacramento gay bar with another man and his weak explanation for his consistently anti-gay record in his long legislative career that "[his] votes reflect the wishes of people in [his] district."

That's not an entirely unreasonable defense. After all, if every politician who ever voted contrary to his or her personal beliefs in order to please constituents were branded a hypocrite, you'd be hard-pressed to find one without a scarlet "H." Yet Ashburn's seeming concern for the will of the people is highly selective. In February 2009, he was one of six Republicans in the Legislature who approved a budget deal that raised taxes and fees, inspiring widespread wrath in his district and a recall campaign against him. Moreover, voters trust representatives to use their best judgment and vote on laws according to their own consciences, not to consult the polls before every controversial decision.

The best way to fight bigotry is by setting an example. By coming forward, acknowledging his sexual orientation and pointing out that gay people can be successful business owners and politicians and even Christian conservatives, Ashburn could soothe his community's fears and help others like him end their deception. And there are others; aside from famous examples such as former Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho or former Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, the documentary "Outrage" last year pointed out many other closeted right-wing politicians so full of self-loathing that they consistently vote to deny equal rights to themselves. There's a better path, and we hope Ashburn finds it -- but first he has to admit the real reasons for his self-destructive votes.

Zing!

'Outrage' appearing on HBO

Kirby Dick's Outrage (see MadProfessah's A review) will be airing repeatedly on HBO during the month of October:

Oct. 5: 9:00-10:30 p.m. ET/PT

Oct. 5: 2:30 a.m.

Oct. 8: 1:00 p.m., 8:30 p.m.

Oct. 11: 10:30 a.m.

Oct. 14: 4:25 a.m.

Oct. 15: 6:00 p.m.

Oct. 20: 3:30 p.m., 12:05 a.m.

Oct. 24: 6:30 p.m.

Oct. 30: 4:00 p.m.

HBO2:

Oct. 14: 8:00 p.m.

Oct. 22: 12:05 a.m.

Oct. 28 11:00 a.m

It is a must-see film!