GAY BASHING IS NO LONGER POLITICALL INCORRECT

Psycho · October 7, 2006

With thirtyeight (38) states and seven (7) more soon to amend their constitution and/or laws to forbid same sex adoption and marriage in response to aggressive demands by the Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Transgender community to be allowed to adopt and marry, GAY BASHING has once again become politically not incorrect with so much of it popping up on TV (Tonight Show, Mad TV, Saturday Night Live, Dave Letterman, and etcetera).

The dislike for GLBT people nationwide was seen the past two weeks in America's reaction to the folly of Congressman Tom Foley of Florida.

The reality is, once the GLBT community came forward with their demands for equality, America answered with a big HELL NO and the increase in GAY BASHING is seen from shore to shore, on TV, heard on radio shows and nobody can deny it is rampant.

BlingBling · October 19, 2006

I am sure that was what the Klan thought about Civil Rights.

rivera · October 19, 2006

Luke_Wilbur · October 19, 2006

I am sure the Party of Lincoln (Republican Party) would never endorse that type of Rhetoric. You might want to read this

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Among tiny corps of openly gay Republican politicians, a mix of dismay and hope

The Associated Press

Published: October 19, 2006

NEW YORK They are members of a most exclusive club — a district attorney and a mayor from California, a legislator from Minnesota, a few of others scattered across the country. They are elected officials who are Republican and openly gay.

"People think it's an oxymoron — how can you be gay and be in the Republican Party?" said the Minnesota state senator, Paul Koering.

Sexual orientation has moved to the political forefront in recent weeks because of the congressional scandal involving Republican Mark Foley, who resigned from Congress after being confronted over suggestive messages he sent to male teenage assistants, called pages. He later acknowledged he was gay.

Recent polls show the scandal has hurt Republican prospects in the Nov. 7 elections for Congress and for state and local offices across the country.

Subsequently, there has been much debate about the presence of closeted gays in the Republican Party, but little focus on the party's persistently tiny number of openly gay officeholders.

The only openly gay Republican in Congress, Representative Jim Kolbe, is retiring, and his final months of service may be clouded by an investigation of a camping trip he took with former pages in 1996.

According to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which supports gay candidates, there are about 350 openly gay elected officials nationwide — up from about 50 in 1990. Of those elected on party tickets, 140 are Democrats and 11 are Republicans, according to the fund; it said that of 57 openly gay state legislators (out of a total of 7,382 seats), Koering is the only Republican.

Victory Fund president Chuck Wolfe said many gays who once found the Republican Party appealing had become disenchanted as religious conservatives expanded their influence and made opposition to same-sex marriage a high-profile issue in the 2004 election.

Instead of an all-welcoming "big tent," Wolfe said, the party "has chased out more and more gay Republicans."

Among those determined to stay is Peter Hankwitz, a TV producer and talent manager who is the Republican nominee challenging incumbent Democrat Brad Sherman for a congressional seat in California's San Fernando Valley.

Hankwitz is an underdog, without funding from national Republican committees, yet state Republican officials have been supportive, even posing for pictures with Hankwitz and Julian Trevino, his domestic partner since 1997.

Hankwitz resents what he calls "single-issue social politics" — including the campaign against gay marriage — and wishes he could get to Congress to help moderate his party's stance on such issues.

"Unfortunately, we're influenced by the people on the extreme right and extreme left," he said.

Southern California already has openly gay Republicans in office — including San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Redondo Beach Mayor Mike Gin.

Gin says he has no qualms about remaining Republican.

"I believe in the basic tenets — limited government, individual rights, a strong economy and national defense," he said. "It's important to me to provide a more moderate voice."

Likewise, Koering — who opposes abortion and gun control — wants to keep working within the Republican Party. He recently survived a tough primary challenge against a conservative whose campaign stressed "moral values."

"It would be easy for me to go to the Democrats — they court me on a daily basis," Koering said. "But I still believe my home is in the Republican Party. I'm not going to let the people who have a radical agenda kick me out."

Nationally, Republican officials have voiced no concern about the scarcity of openly gay officeholders. Tara Wall of the Republican National Committee and Alex Johnson of the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee said it wasn't a priority issue.

"We look for good candidates who believe in our message," said Johnson. "If they happen to be gay, it's their prerogative."

On the religious right, some leaders make clear they would welcome a Republican Party without gay-rights supporters, whether they are gay or not.

"The issue is not their sexual orientation," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "It's whether they support pro-family policies."

Democratic leaders generally have embraced gay-rights causes — same-sex partnership rights, for example — even while disagreeing on gay marriage. Gay Democratic candidates have won seats even in seemingly inhospitable territory — scoring breakthroughs recently in legislative races in Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina and Georgia.

Perkins said Republicans shouldn't worry about losing votes of gays — arguing their numbers are dwarfed by the ranks of Christian conservatives. He predicted that any Republican presidential candidate deemed a gay-rights supporter, such as former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, would fail to get the 2008 nomination.

The Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition urged the Republican Party to abandon the concept of a "big tent" welcoming gays.

Sheldon predicted that Republican organizers, because of the Foley scandal, would be more aggressive in asking prospective candidates if they were gay.

The president of the largest national gay rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, suggested Republicans had reached a significant crossroads.

"A majority of Americans believe both parties ought to be open and inclusive," he said. "So you've got the Republican leadership in a quandary: how do you balance that public sentiment. ...with the powerful voting bloc of the radical right?"

For nearly 30 years, a group called Log Cabin Republicans has been lobbying to make the party more open to gays and gay rights. Its executive vice president, Patrick Sammon, is optimistic that anti-gay politicking will lose effectiveness.

"The anti-gay Republicans want a narrow agenda that only 25 to 30 percent of Americans actually agree with," Sammon said. "Republican officeholders are shrewd enough to understand that's a losing strategy, that the party risks being on the wrong side of history."