Condi Delivers the Labels of Gay Marriage without the Laws
How does a party that can attribute much of its success in the last elections to an anti-gay agenda come to terms with the fact that many of its top politicians are gay? How does the public face of Republican leadership differ from its private face?
That's the complex question asked by this article in USA Today which features a recent moment orchestrated by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush in which Rice referred to the mother of Mark Dybul's partner Jason Claire as Dybul's "mother-in-law". Dybul is America's new Global AIDS Coordinator.
How can members of the Bush administration facilitate the shoving of anti-gay marriage laws down the nation's throats and then boldly refer to Claire's mother as Dybul's mother-in-law?
To USA Today it was a "celebratory moment". To others it looked like a bold, pro-gay act of tolerance. While the manner in which she delivered it probably matters quite a bit in this situation, to me it just seems unbelievable (given the Republican agenda) that Rice could have stood there and said that with a straight face.
Page scandal exposes GOP's gay identity crisis [usa today]
I think the real question is: "How can gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people support the George W. Bush administration by voting for and serving alongside these politicians who actively endorse homophobic policies?"
Posted by: peterparker | Oct 13, 2006 11:54:41 AM
They - and by they I mean most politicians, and practically all politicians with a little R by their name - could give a flying fuck about Christianity, homosexuality, our rights, your rights - anyone's rights. Note I wrote politicians, as opposed to actual republicans, who are a many varied lot, as are any group of people. We now know openly what we have so long suspected, that Karl Rove and others in this administration refer to evangelical Christians as "The Nuts," etc., and gay marriage was only ever used as a wedge, a shameful, backbiting play to get - well, "The Nuts," people who for varying reasons really, truly believe that being gay is the commission of a sin - to get them to the polls to vote for a little R - while playing to the baser emotions of rage, fear, smugness, and cruelty. We have been put in our place, and our place, apparently, is in 2nd class.
They care about power, money, and rewarding those who brought them to their seats. That is all they care about. Any gay man who is a politician in - well, practically either party, but especially the Rs - are insulated against the laws, the hatred and the very real effects their bile-spewing has caused.
Must we solace ourselves with politicians who won't speak openly of our rights - who will only count on a mutual, unspoken understanding that at least they won't legislate against us?
Posted by: david | Oct 13, 2006 12:00:58 PM
umm...it's cause Condi is a lesbian herself.... that's the info I get for hooking up with a republican who has worked on national elections... YAY
and check out how she responds to the question of marriage during her 60 minutes interview
http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/3/condi_rice
it's under the row that says "Web Exclusive"
the clip title is "Love Life"
(PS....first Post :) )
Posted by: BobE | Oct 13, 2006 12:07:29 PM
pretty stinkin' incredible!!
And Laura there just smirkin' away!
She is totally telling Rove to shut up.
Posted by: dc-20008 | Oct 13, 2006 12:11:24 PM
When its AIDS people generally lose their fascist masks and the human reveals
Posted by: patrick | Oct 13, 2006 12:15:26 PM
Hypocrisy runs rampant in the Bush White House!
Posted by: wtf | Oct 13, 2006 12:19:49 PM
I kinda suspected something was up when Laura opened the conversation with "...and I think Liberace was the greatest perfomer of all times!"
Laura reminds me of the female alien from "Mars Attacks". Always did.
Posted by: Rad | Oct 13, 2006 12:20:23 PM
Thanks for that link, BobE. Condi chooses her words VERY carefully. Reminds me of how I used to do it. But I never rode into political power and the history books on the backs of my tribe. To be fair, it's not like it was offered, but still!
Posted by: Michael | Oct 13, 2006 12:24:57 PM
Bobe
Interesting first post, thanks for the intel
welcome to towelroad
Posted by: jimmyboyo | Oct 13, 2006 12:27:22 PM
I'm there with you PeterParker; how can there be so many gay republicans supporting policies that are working against us. Clearly, these people have managed to disassociate themselves from that part of themselves that is gay. Or, just as in the entire population, there are those amoral types who care nothing more than to get what they can at any price. These people are not bothered by consciences. They see the results of gay-bashings and the lack of rights for there gay brothers and sisters to make families as not affecting them, because they are managing to get ahead in some way. These folks have chosen a path of folly, and in the end will suffer.
Posted by: Bill | Oct 13, 2006 12:29:32 PM
Naive as I may be, I fail to see how someone can have so much self-loathing as to support policies that run counter to their own lifestyles? Is the need for power that great?
I do believe that Condi didn't expect a little event like a swearing-in to get that much press, or else she would have been carefully coached by Rove et al. I mean, the Republicans still are hoping their base comes out in droves to vote!
Posted by: Larry | Oct 13, 2006 12:35:43 PM
Wasn't this paradox exposed already with the disclosure of Mary Cheney's sexuality? I thought he caught hell for not damning her to hell.
Posted by: 000000 | Oct 13, 2006 1:06:32 PM
While DC-20008's hallucination that this was Laura's way of telling Rove to shut up had me hurling my breakfast of champions [really, dude, get into rehab really fast], it's the reaction of John Aravosis that gives genuine pause. Although I highly admire him, his valentine to Condosleazy Rice shows that even the most intelligent and dedicated advocates for gay equality can lose their objectivity after having been briefly held in the tractor beam of such a powerful person, in this case having once interviewed her. Apparently that was before all of her "You can tell I'm lying through my bad teeth by the fact that my mouth is open and sound is coming out" testimony to Congress, media interviews, etc., regarding Bush & Iraq. Otherwise, he could not seriously have written she "doesn't let out a word she doesn't mean." Further, for him to equate her hypothetical genuine "tolerance" of Dybul's sexuality and same sex relationship with an endorsement of "gay marriage" is, forgive me Mr. Aravosis, Gannonian.
As gay media articles about the swearing in have noted, "Secretary of State Colin Powell held a similar swearing-in ceremony in 2001 for Michael Guest, a gay foreign service officer whom Bush appointed as U.S. ambassador to Romania. Like Rice, Powell recognized Guest’s domestic partner, who also held a Bible as Powell administered the oath of office." In the ensuing five years I've never once heard of Powell recanting his documented homophobia. Given that he was the chief saboteur of Clinton's attempt to integrate open gays into the military, telling military academy cadets that they should resign should gays be admitted, and pontificating that being gay is not innate but simply "behavioral," I doubt if he supported legalized gay marriage then or supports it now, though Americablog and others quickly jump to that conclusion about her from a similar performance by Rice.
The real motivation behind the Rice fake rice throwing was given by Jew for Hitler, excuse me, "Gay Republican activst" Carl Schmid who was there and said that "the Dybul appointment would bolster the administration’s support among moderate voters and others, including gays." The Bush-Rovians, like any smart politicians of any party, vacuum up votes wherever they can find them. Lose a couple of Evangelicals here, suck up a couple of desperate-for-a-pat-on-the-head gays over there. It's all about numbers, not who constitutes them.
As for Dybul, his scientific credentials seem highly defensible, whereas his repeated and tireless whitewash of the religious extremist ideology permeating and poisoning the Bush AIDS funding requirements does not. Despite some reports to the contrary, all AIDS activists have not endorsed them, and, in fact, the program has been widely criticized both for concept and execution. Known as the "ABC plan," for Abstinence, Being Faithful, and Condoms, it has been attacked for unrealistically emphasizing A & B over C. Focus has centered on the plan’s questionable implementation in Uganda, where a million have already died of AIDS, and another 600,000 are infected—and capable of infecting hundreds of thousands of others. At least 20% of the US funds there are under the control of “faith-based” groups. Regulations REQUIRE any discussion of condoms to include promoting abstinence and “faithfulness,” but discussions of A&B do NOT require discussion of the condom option. Public billboards encouraging condom use have all but disappeared, and some charged in 2005 that the US and the now rabidly anti condom Ugandan government were purposely creating a condom shortage. “A group of Ugandan and Western organizations and a senior U.N. aids expert claim that Uganda has over the last year allowed a condom shortage while promoting a message of abstinence based on religious dogma.” – “Time” magazine. Like every good Bush lap dog, Dybul pooh-poohed such concerns; calling them conspiracy theories. The most mindboggling evidence that the plan is willing to sacrifice lives for ideology is that, even though prostitution is legal in Brazil, the US refused to give funds to Brazil unless it formally condemned prostitution. The Brazilian government, fearing that it would undermine the extensive role sex workers have played in helping successfully implement their prevention campaign, refused, thus losing $40 million from the US theocracy.
Meanwhile, here, the Administration has created a needless fight between different states over the crumbs the White House is throwing them for HIV/AIDS services, while sending out its shills to distract the public and media from the facts of its shameless and arguably homophobic underfunding with charges of partisan grandstanding.
Posted by: Leland | Oct 13, 2006 2:04:15 PM
Most of these anti-gay Republican politicians are not anti-gay in private; only in public.
In my opinion THAT is even worse than actually being anti-gay and voting their conscience.
The fact that these people have gay and lesbian family members, friends, staff AND some are actually gay themselves but are still willing to throw the gays under the bus at every opportunity for political gain, is unbelievably cowardly and shameful.
I'd rather have a politician that is an enemy to my face AND on the floor of Congress before a slimeball that is my friend behind closed doors but actively works for my destruction in public ANY DAY!
Laura Bush and Condi Rice are gay supportive in private and have even hinted at such in public statements. However, as long as they support and defend the homophobes in public, or stand silently by while their friends and relatives are demonized by these homobigots, they are no better than Perkins, Dobson or any of the other rabid homophobes that actually believe the filth they push.
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 13, 2006 2:11:04 PM
WOW! THE VICTIMHOOD ON THIS SITE IS OVERWHELMING! I'm a gay man, and i can see Condi's comments for what they are. She is not a biggoted, homophobe, but on the contrary trying to be INCLUSIVE! Of course, that take on things doesn't fall in line with the gays VICTIMHOOD MENTALITY! Poor me, poor me some doesn't like me... boo hoo...
note: the Bush Administration has appointed more openly gay people into prominent positions then Clinton ever did. Bush 6 at last count, Clinton 2.
But, simple facts don't work when your always THE VICTIM!
gets some balls... cry babies!
Posted by: mark | Oct 13, 2006 2:14:44 PM
The Bush Administration may have appointed more openly gay people than Clinton, but President Clinton never called a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage one of the most important issues facing the country when our soldiers were getting killed in a war we didn't need to fight.
Posted by: Larry | Oct 13, 2006 2:36:12 PM
Let's stop this lie right now. Bush has NOT appointed more openly gay people than Clinton. What an overflowing, steaming crock of shit. Put up or shut the fuck up! List their names and titles and I'll list the ones Clinton appointed and we'll do the math, you Bush-cum sucking, self-loathing, oven-stoking megatard.
Posted by: Leland | Oct 13, 2006 2:46:43 PM
Who cares who appoints who? When I turn on the TV and I see a SOTU speech that pushes the denial of rights to AMERICAN CITIZENS, I don't care who's filing papers or fetching coffee in the House.
Posted by: Derrick | Oct 13, 2006 2:56:20 PM
To be fair, President Clinton did sign and support both DOMA AND DADT. He was no gay hero.
However, I'm not going to be drawn into a flame war here over who was more gay positive or more gay negative.
The fact of the matter is Clinton hasn't been President for six years. Even though we are still living with his gay negative legacy, he's not the one in power now.
I refuse to be shamed or bullied away from confronting the current rabidly anti-gay administration by rants from some Republican prison bitch about the sins of Clinton or by his punk boy claims that I'm claiming "victim" simply because I have the intelligence to know when I'm getting screwed and the balls to stand up and say so.
Try again Republibitch. Not gonna fly with this redneck homo.
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 13, 2006 2:57:26 PM
I think there's going to be a bloodbath in the GOP as they try to figure out how to deal with all the (gasp) homos in their midst. It'll be particularly ugly if they loose big next month. And I think Condi is staking out a position in the party that may emerge. I'm no fan of Condi, mind you. I believe she has the blood of thousands on her hands, but I think she's looking to the future with this photo op.
Posted by: sam | Oct 13, 2006 2:57:44 PM
Larry, you seem to be forgetting Bill Clinton signed both DADT and DOMA into law, two of the most repugnant anti-gay pieces of legislation of our generation.
Posted by: Pompeius | Oct 13, 2006 3:00:20 PM
Zeke beat me to it.
Boy you guys type fast!
Posted by: Pompeius | Oct 13, 2006 3:01:43 PM
...and Leland. WOW. such vitriol.
Posted by: Derrick | Oct 13, 2006 3:03:00 PM
Mark, it's not about victimhood or the fact that someone 'doesn't like me'. I don't give a rat's ass what those corrupt, hateful Republican bastards in Washington (or anyone else) thinks about me. I do care, however, that GLBT Americans like myself still do not enjoy the same equal rights of EVERY OTHER AMERICAN CITIZEN! I care that the George W. Bush administration pushed a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT that would have made us permanent second class citizens. I do care that this administration has stymied HIV/AIDS research by requiring scientists to change their research in order to appease the religious conservatives...changes that may cost the lives of people with HIV/AIDS (like myself). I care that this administration has squelched the discussion of condom use as a means of preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDS which puts teenagers and young people of all stripes at risk of a terrible, incurable disease.
No, I don't care what they think of me because I think faaaaaaaaaaaaaarr worse of them than they could ever think of me. But I think even worse of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people (like yourself) who support them. There is a special place in hell for people like you, Mark.
Posted by: peterparker | Oct 13, 2006 3:54:38 PM
Don't confuse passion with vitriol.
Posted by: Zeke | Oct 13, 2006 3:57:37 PM