The Pity Party
When Ken Mehlman, architect of the GOP's 2004 anti-gay get-out-the-vote strategy, announced to the world that he was gay, the histrionics from both extremes of the political spectrum was predictable, as was the big yawn in the yawning middle.
But the extremes are instructional in their way, and the reaction of the extreme right GOP, which is more extreme by far than the extreme left Dems (who, in moving to the right, have become downright centrist) can tell us everything we need to know about the M.O. of the Gay Old, er, Grand Old Party.
Mehlman's Republican brethren are defending him against the evil, intolerant, means girls on the gay left, who they fear "may even try to follow him around, possibly even accosting him in public. They will not give him the space to deal with this in private and in his own way." Poor, poor Ken. What did he ever do to deserve this imaginary pillorying?
But isn't it funny how fast the issue here became "conservative gays: victims of left-wing 'homosexual agenda'"? Brilliant. I mean, how is it that the GOP, with its experts at scapegoating for political gain (they invented the "wedge issue"), always ends up crying "victim!" in the end?
GOP? GOPP — Grand Old Pity Party — is more like it.
I guess it's just part and parcel of their political creed of having their cake and eating it too.
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Newsflash, bitches: if you go out gay-bashing
and come back with your eyes scratched out,
you've got nobody but yourself to blame.
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Newsflash, bitches: if you go out gay-bashing
and come back with your eyes scratched out,
you've got nobody but yourself to blame.
_________________________________________________________
Most gay people find themselves politically on the left not out of some mysterious radical “homosexual agenda”, but because the right has shamelessly exploited homosexuality as a wedge issue — of course that radicalizes the opposition. That's the point. That gay-bashing has been a strategy on the right isn't even up for debate. It’s an acknowledged fact on both sides of the political spectrum. It’s something Mehlman himself acknowledges (he fingers fellow-queen Karl Rove for it, though).
Truth is, most gay people I know aren't all that political. They just want equal rights and protections under the law and to get on with their lives, period. It's simple. We're just like anyone else. We pay our taxes, we want to be treated the same as other citizens, without having to cower in the closet or bow and scrape for it.
The political right is what is keeping us from achieving this, and the right is keeping us from it not because they "hate" us (for the most part) but for political gain (which means they are exploiting those who do hate us for votes). You don’t have to be political to be appalled by and opposed to that M.O.
For those concerned for Mehlman's privacy and safety, nobody’s going to follow Mehlman around and disturb the delicate process of his private coming out (complete with chichi coming-out party). Mehlman is not that big a deal to liberals. He’s just another Republisexual, a private gay who knows a good wedge issue when he sees it.
I agree with your newsflash to conservatives. I have little empathy for these pricks who I would equate to self-loathing, self-serving jerks.
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In the 50s it was communists and homosexuals. With the Holocaust still in focus in the historical rearview mirror Jews were of less concern - excepting the case of the Rosenbergs.
In Uganda - via American right-wing religious elites - gays are used as the top scapegoat. Though what is obvious to anyone willing to be honest is that this is just another exercise in creating a devil for sake of claiming the role of saviour, father of the nation, etc.
Wedge issue is certainly an element in the right's use of gays; just as important is that wedge issues are part of their MO for gaining and holding power.
It is always about power. Why the majority of media ignores that I don't know.
Beck's rally in D.C. is a perfect example. The entire show was orchestrated to make Glen Beck the hero of the moment. Everyone present was an actor in Glen Beck's moment to become the great American saviour. He follows the classic pattern of painting himself as a hero. Claim some high moral ground of restoring America, Constitution, etc. without any specifics or particulars that would get in the way of painting himself as a moral hero.
One thing I heard which made my ears burn. An interviewer asked an executive with the Southern Baptist Convention what the fellow thought about Beck's Mormonism. His response - a rationalization worthy of Joseph Goebbels and Soviet propaganda: that the Mormons are the 4th Abrahamic religion.
To compare Mormons to Judaism, Christianity and Islam is an absolute perversion of logic, history and theology.
On the other hand it makes sense to me: this guy from the Southern Baptist Convention sees Beck as someone they can use. Therefore it is necessary to rationalize away the huge theological differences between conservative Baptists and Mormons.
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I'm actually a bit surprised you posted on this nonentity. Yet I was persuaded to visit The Gay Patriot to read the item (and was compelled to comment myself). Thinking of gays like Ken Mehlman (Heaven knows I try not to), I'm reminded of something Bella Abzug of New York once said: "Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel." Perhaps we GLBT's can one day say the same thing. Then again Ken Mehlman does behave like a schlemiel. Courage: our time has come!
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