Why Gay Republicans Need To Come Out

GOP leaders are currently embroiled in a back room war over whether or not Michael Steele should be replaced as party chairman. While a few people are standing behind Steele, most want to see him ousted, and a number of hopefuls have emerged.

Rather than taking the Republican party in a new direction, however, these contenders want to toe the anti-gay line that's worked so well in the past. If gay Republicans want to save their party, they'd better speak up.

"[Same-sex marriage] devalues the relationship that is shared by my wife and I and a number of committed married couples," said former RNC political director and current chair contender Gentry Collins.

Another hopeful, Saul Anuzis, insisted, “Marriage is an institution that has been around for 3,000 years. It's part of our faith. It's part of our culture. It's important to have a mother and a father … People care that you're a family person.”

One of the many female candidates, Ann Wagner, echoed Anuzis' sentiment: "I think that's where the American people are. They believe in traditional marriage ... It's important that we hold true to those tenants and values that I think are a pillar of our Republican party and our platform.”

But that pillar's no longer bearing the load it did in the past.

More and more young Republicans are embracing equality -- about 60% of GOP adherents under 30say gays and lesbians should be able to wed.

Despite this trend the GOP and their allies continue to trumpet a discriminatory ideology, one that now blends traditional social conservatism with timely fiscal concerns, an idea Steele himself helped start earlier this year.

"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele said of how the GOP could frame gay marriage. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

As the RNC looks for its new leader, GOP leaders Mike Huckabee, Rep. Michele Bachmann and soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner are throwing their support behind long-time Republican allies the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and the National Organization for Marriage, which the Southern Poverty Law Center qualified as a "hate group" for their consistent attacks on LGBT equality.

"We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity... pro-family organizations that are working to protect and promote natural marriage and family," they write in the mass letter. "We support the vigorous but responsible exercise of the First Amendment rights of free speech and religious liberty that are the birthright of all Americans."

Rather than embracing the future, these men and women are grasping at the past, trying to sustain a political plot that's no longer tenable.

There are signs that these traditional groups could be edged out, however. Gay Republican groups like GOProud and individuals like former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman or Fred Karger, a gay presidential contender, are making themselves more visible on the party's scene.

Karger regularly explains that his candidacy's as much about winning as it is raising his party's awareness of LGBT issues: "If I do nothing else, to kind of make this issue, to put a face on this issue as opposed to what happened in previous elections like 2004 where the gay community was getting used as a political tool to strengthen the president’s reelection."

GOProud has also worked to elevate its profile, and today released a statement about the RNC election. Said chairman Chris Barron in a statement, "For conservatives, and anyone else who cares about the future of the Republican Party, this vote should be an easy one – anyone but Michael Steele."

While certainly Barron and his peers have a responsibility to make their voices heard among the din of anti-gay Republicans, their stance against Steele comes as rather impotent when viewed against the other Chair contenders' comments.

If gay Republicans are truly committed to their political party, then they owe it to the GOP to steer it toward a more inclusive future, because there's little chance the Republicans can thrive by maintaining the same old ideas. Republicans who either remain quiet in the closet or on the sidelines do so at the peril of not only their party's survival, but its moral center, as well.

As Mehlman, who came out earlier this year, said, "If you think about some pretty important issues that we all believe in, whether it's freedom, whether it's, frankly, the value of community... the freedom to marry, the right to marry, it's consistent with the Republican philosophy to be supportive of two adults who love each other -- whether they be gay or straight -- having the right to get married."

No, Mehlman's not perfect, but at least he's speaking out against his party's entrenched exclusion. And that alone is a step in the right direction.

Photo credit: sushiesque's Flickr gayrights.change.org

Andrew Belonsky is a journalist living in New York City.

Barney Frank's week of gay zingers [transcripts & video]

Posted by duy on December 26, 2010 10:39 AM | Permalink

''By the way, I‘ve always wondered what would have been the situation if I or another gay or lesbian official had said, We have this important idea.  Let‘s exempt gay and lesbian
people from having to defend the country.  You talk about people complaining about special rights.
''... they had conferred on us over our objection the special right of all time, whether there was a draft or not.  But yes, I was reading the comments, one of the—a young Marine, an 18-year-old, who said, Well, I‘m against this because, you know, we‘re macho.  We‘re Marines, and gay men are girly.
''Now, I will confess that I left my purse at home. And I‘m sorry I didn‘t live up to his prediction.

''But having—giving gay and lesbian people a chance to show, in the most important and challenging thing you can do in America, that we really are like everybody else, except for our choices about what we do in intimate moments ... that‘s a very important breakthrough.  This will do more to help us destroy the myth.  And you know, look, reality is the enemy of prejudice, and this is one more step in enabling us to present a reality that will help diminish prejudice across the board.''

Massachusetts Senator Barney Frank speaking with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's ''Hardball'' about gay members of the military providing a layer of ''assimilation'' seen by other minority groups in America during the 20th Century. (MSNBC)

''Four years ago, a Republican running for Congress in Indiana said don't vote for his Democratic opponent, because if he won, Nancy Pelosi would become Speaker, and she would let me enact the radical homosexual agenda.... So let me own up to that agenda.
''For those who are worried about the 'radical homosexual agenda,' let me put them on notice: Two down, two to go.''

''It's to be protected against violent crimes driven by bigotry. It's to be able to get married. It's to be able to get a job. And it's to be able to fight for our country.

Sen. Barney Frank at a press conference last week regarding DADT repeal. (via YouTube)

''[fake gasp] Showering with homosexuals?! What do you think happens in gyms all over America? What do you think happens in the House of Representatives? Of course people shower with homosexuals. What a silly issue!
''What do you think goes wrong when people shower with homosexuals? Do you think it's the spray makes it catching? People shower with homosexuals in college dormatories, in gyms where people play sports, in gyms elsewhere -- it is a complete non-issue....
''To accept the principle that homosexuals can't shower with other people is a degree of discrimination that goes far beyond this. I mean, uh -- we don't get ourselves dry cleaned....
''Remember, under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' by the way, the policy was that you would be showwering with homosexuals, you just weren't supposed to know which was which....''
''Do you think there ought to be separate showers at gyms? If not, then why in the military?''

Barney Frank responding to a reporter from CNSNews, a website that bills itself as "The Right News. Right Now." While trying to corner Senator Frank on the issue of sexual attraction and personal hygiene in the military, Frank did say that male and female personnel showering together "would disrupt people."  (CNSNews)



Also:

A Marine, Who Happened to be Gay, Saved a President

	My sexual orientation has nothing at all to do with saving the President's life, just as the color of my eyes or my race has nothing to do with what happened in front of the St. Francis Hotel.

On the day that the U.S. Senate voted to shed one more discriminatory shackle, Sen. Dianne Feinstein paused for a moment to remember a Marine veteran of Vietnam, a hero named Billy Sipple.

Sipple had become a troubled man at the end of his days in 1989. He got by on disability checks; his square-jawed good looks long since had disappeared into his 298-pound hulk.

He spent too much time in the bars along Polk Street, and lived in a $334-a-month apartment at the edge of San Francisco's Tenderloin. The place was cluttered with junk, but for one keepsake, a framed note on the wall.

Feinstein had known Sipple only by deed. I didn't know him either. But 22 years ago, I traced the final days and lonely death of a man who probably saved the life of a president.

Sipple, the son of a Detroit autoworker, had been discharged from the Marines in 1970 and made his way to San Francisco in search of acceptance, like so many others.

On Sept. 22, 1975, Sipple was on the sidewalk outside the St. Francis Hotel hoping to catch a glimpse of another Michigan native, Gerald Ford. Sipple looked up as a woman named Sara Jane Moore pulled a revolver from her purse. Without a second thought, Sipple lunged at her.

Feinstein, then the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, didn't see the assassination attempt but had been Ford's host at the St. Francis.

"It was a gay man who grabbed her gun, which deflected the shot aimed at our president," Feinstein said on Saturday, the day that the Senate voted to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that had forced countless military men and women to remain closeted.

Perhaps the prejudice and fears that led to the policy fed the demons that haunted Sipple. Sipple surely suffered. Sipple's brother, George, told me that the Marines at one point denied Sipple was ever in the service. There were, after all, no gay Marines.

In San Francisco in 1975, Harvey Milk was running for office and pushing to help gays gain political power. Sipple was one of his campaign workers. Upon hearing of Sipple's heroics, Milk saw an opportunity.

Two days after the assassination attempt, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen disclosed Sipple's sexual orientation, and quoted Milk and another gay man "who claim to be among Sipple's close friends described themselves as 'proud – maybe this will help break the stereotype.' "

Sipple had been out of the closet in San Francisco. But like so many others who sought freedom by settling in the city, Sipple had not told his family back in Michigan. His parents were shocked at the news. His father never got over it, he later said.

Sipple filed an invasion of privacy suit against the Chronicle and other news organizations that reported about his orientation. A state appellate court ruled against him, finding his sexual orientation was a legitimate part of the story.

It took a toll. "I have a lot of stress, and I take it out on booze," he testified in a deposition given in the suit.

Sipple was 47 when he died. But for some reason, he said he was 59 at a birthday party he threw for himself at a Polk Street bar three months before his death. He told his bar friends it would be his last.

Wayne Friday, then an investigator for the San Francisco District Attorney's Office, stopped by one of Sipple's Polk Street hangouts in February 1989. The bartender asked that Friday check in on Sipple, who hadn't been around.

Friday found Sipple dead on his bed, half-gallon bottles of bourbon and 7-Up nearby. He had been there two weeks. The framed note was on a wall.

"Dear Mr. Sipple,

"I want you to know how much I appreciated your selfless actions last Monday. The events were a shock to us all, but you acted quickly and without fear for your own safety. By doing so, you helped to avert danger to me and to others in the crowd. You have my heartfelt appreciation."

President Gerald Ford signed it.

Sipple would claim he retired from Marines as a colonel. In fact, his highest rank was corporal. He was discharged as a private first class. He was wounded twice in Vietnam, once in the head, and lived on full veteran's disability.

"He was a Marine who saved the president's life. Being gay doesn't matter," George Sipple, 70, a retired autoworker, told me by phone Wednesday.

President Barack Obama last Wednesday signed the law that will permit gay men and women to openly serve their country.

"Unfortunately, my brother didn't live long enough to see this come about. I think he would have been proud," George said.

George and I spoke in 1989 when he came to San Francisco to lay his brother to rest and empty his apartment.

Back then, George told me that his brother was honored to have left a mark on history, knowing that on occasion, "somebody will pick up a book and see Oliver Sipple saved President Ford's life."

Or maybe, on a historic day when the United States broke down a barrier that caused untold pain, a United States senator might take time to remember a Marine's act of heroism a long time ago.  http://www.sacbee.com

adamfoxie: Click here to watch vid

In Discussing DADT Repeal, David Brock Chides Gay Republicans

David Brock, a former gay Republican, has called gay members of the GOP

 “self-loathing.”

The journalist behind progressive watchdog Media Matters for America

 and the nascent gay rights watchdog Equality Matters defected from the conservative movement after coming out gay.

Brock and Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters, appeared

 Wednesday on MSNBC's Hardball to discuss the recent repeal of

 “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” the Clinton-era law that bans gay and bisexual

 troops from serving openly.

During the roundtable discussion, host Chris Matthews asked his guests,

 “Why do gay Republicans put up with their party being so homophobic?”

“I used to be one,” Brock announced.

“Why did you put up with it?” Matthews asked.

“I'll tell you. Self-loathing. I wasn't confident enough in myself to come out.”

“So you joined a party that hated you?”

“That's exactly right,” Brock responded.

Brock also suggested that many in the GOP don't agree with their party's

 anti-gay rhetoric.

“It's a phony wedge cultural war issue,” Brock said. “They exploit gay 

people and they exploit the fear of gay people to gin up their base.

 That's what they do. It's a totally cynical thing. Half of them don't even

 believe in it. I know, I was in the right-wing.”

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF 

Did Lady Gaga help Obama win Gay Rights amendment?

 Lady Gaga was a strong advocate for the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask Dont Tell’, which was finally approved by the US senate and seen as a major victory for the gay rights movement.

Whilst the pop icon was not involved in the negotiations of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had tweeted to her that the policy would be reversed. The singer had taken to youtube, producing videos, and viral shout outs to persuade people to vote for the repeal of the controversial bill, much detested by the gay community and seen as a pivotal moment in American history.

This brings the question as to whether celebrities have a huge sway on politics as they have the power to reach millions of people including policy makers themselves.

Gaga’s popularity in 2010 has also skyrocketed because of her controversial appearance, original videos, and much publicized performance.

Lady Gaga and the movement

While Lady Gaga commands an army of followers across the world, the pop icon has become a figure not just for her music, but her uniqueness. Unfortunately with reality TV shows and online contests dominating the airwaves, often young people want to be like someone else, when the best thing they can do to achieve real success is to be themselves.

Posted by Filmindustrynetwork

Clay Aiken’s New Boyfriend Shows Off. Are You Jealous??

 

Earlier in the Spring, Patrick gave us a sneak peek into what could be going on in Clay Aiken’s bedroom. At the time, he was dating Broadway hottie Reed Kelly who was stripping for a benefit titled Broadway Bares. At the time they had been dating since 2008 and there seemed to be no signs of stress on the romance. However, the attention that Reed found post-strip may have put a strain on the relationship.

Not too long after this post went up, Patrick reported on the couple yet again. This time, it was their split that had everyone talking. Reed Kelly had changed his MySpace profile to Single and had changed his profile song to You Lost Me. How tragic. But now its looking as though Clay Aiken is doing just fine. Reports have surfaced that he is dating part time model Jeff Walters. If you thought Reed had some impressive moves, wait until you see what Jeff has to offer (if you know what I mean)

Author: Tyrell

http://www.homorazzi.com

Jim Carrey Speaks out Against Homophobia

Jim Carrey who played a man who came out of the closet in the film ‘I Love You Philip Morris’ 

has spoken out against bullies who target victims on the basis of their sexuality.

“This is a horrible thing to be bullied, and to feel like an outcast is a terrible thing,” the star said. “It’s just so an old thing, an old antiquated way of thinking that you can’t have any more. It doesn’t belong in the new paradigm.

“Every time you look at somebody and think, ‘I don’t like that about that person,’ you just got to know that’s about you,” he added.

“Anybody who bullies anybody for any reason is no friend of mine. Frankly, I can’t imagine hitting a human being for any reason except self-preservation, if I was attacked. Your sensibilities are different when you’re a school kid and there’s gang mentality, but it ain’t cool.

“Some of the most valuable people in my life are gay.

“People that bring magical, amazing gifts and contributions to my life. I would say to kids out there when they’re engaging in these kinds of isolations of people, someday you’re going to want those people in your life. You’re going to need those people in your life, and you’re not going to want that on your conscience.”

by Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk 

Engineer unfazed by anti-gay criticism, death threats

by Alyaa Alhadjri and Bissme S.

PETALING JAYA (Dec 26, 2010): A bold decision to come clean about his sexuality via a clip on YouTube has left 32-year-old engineer Azwan Ismail facing fierce criticism and even death threats.

Azwan's video clip titled "Saya gay, saya okay', attracted 116,127 views and 2,500 comments - many of them virulent - when it was uploaded on Seksualiti Merdeka's YouTube channel.
Seksualiti Merdeka is an annual festival on sexuality organised by a coalition of non-governmental organisations.

This coalition's latest video project, "It Gets Better in Malaysia," has inadvertently turned Azwan into a target for Islamic authorities and conservatives in general, despite the campaign's positive message.

Azman's entry was singled-out from the line-up of 15 contributors to the project and reposted on various online media without his consent, but he did not let it faze him.

"I expected these one-sided comments, but perhaps not to the extent of making death threats. We are only exposed to one point of view on homosexuality," he said when contacted. "I feel there is not enough Malay voices talking about homosexuality."

He has no regrets because his video also attracted the attention of young people in similar situations, who felt uplifted by his message.

The nearly three-minute long video saw Azwan, who is also a writer, saying: "I am confident that things will be better. We have to gather our strengths from around us because there people who can help us and give us the confidence to be ourselves, to face our future..."

Seksualiti Merdeka coordinator Pang Khee Teik said the project was brought to Malaysia to highlight the importance of the message and relevance to the country's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community.

Pang also expressed disappointment over the "intolerant and vicious comments" made against Azwan, including one that said he should repent, and others which threatened him with violence and death.

"It is strange to read that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom had asked the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) to monitor the activities of gay groups, but did not also ask them to supervise Muslims who post abusive and vulgar comments," he said.

Last week, Jamil Khir, when asked to comment about the video, had directed Jakim to monitor groups practicing abnormal sexual activities (seks songsang).

"We want their activities to be closely monitored by the authorities, and appropriate preventive actions to be taken, because it could taint the sanctity of Islam," said Jamil Khir, who added that homosexuality is not allowed in Islam.

Among the campaign's supporters include writer and film-maker Amir Muhammad.

"Some people aren't appalled by Azwan Ismail's sexuality. What they are affronted by is that he is a person who is giving his own name, and being completely honest about what he wants to say," Amir told theSun.

On a larger scale, other supporting groups include the PT Foundation, an NGO that works with communities affected by HIV.

PTF acting executive director Raymond Tai said, on average, about 30 to 40% of the calls received by the foundation are related to gender and sexuality issues.

"They are looking for a way to resolve the turmoil and conflict they face due to their sexual orientation," said Tai. -- theSun