ExGovernor implies Eric Cantor is gay and says southerners effeminate!

                                                                          

A note from the Publisher on ‘gay-dar.’For what is worth, before I give you the posting from Howell Williams from the Guardian,   let me just say that my gay-dar which usually operates on the very upper 90% has always picked Cantor as gay. I could explain why but that is not as important as to talk about people that do not know how I feel and  find they feel the same way. 

I have been waiting to write about it but was waiting for the main media even if it’s media in Europe to spell it out via a witness because I don’t write about personal feelings, only what I know as fact writing about Cantor’s sexuality would put me out of my own rules.

 Now that this rumor is reached Europe via a US governor (US media knows it but wont talk about it) it’s time to take a look at a Cantor as effeminate. Does it mean Gay? Many times is true but NOT always.  I could have just posted Howell’s lines about Gov. Brian Schweitzer and keep quiet but the subject is too dear to my heart to not say that I agree with the governor for the most part.

Keeping in mind what homophobia means, imagine someone who looks and sounds gay (generalizing since most gays are NOT effeminate)  you don’t know this because of that same reason.  Only the ones that look the part are made to carry the rainbow wether they are part of it or not. So imagine made to carry the banner when you are not gay. Would that not make you homophobic? In other words, afraid that gays are like you and you like them so you need to emphasize your so called manhood.  May be that is why the South is so homophobic because they suspect they might look the part. Anyone who is not afraid of being what they are can easily get the real information and find out it is possible that the butch best friend from NJ is probably the one who is gay. Knowledge is freedom even from homophobia.

                                                                               

                                                                            

  

Some politicians are just dogged by gay rumors. The voting public loves to get behind a salacious news story from time to time, especially when it involves a potentially closeted conservative who is on the record as anti-gay.

So it is no surprise that former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer made headlines last week when he said that Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor (who is withdrawing from his top slot) sets off his "gay-dar". While he didn't exactly come out and say that Cantor is gay, Schweitzer explained to the National Journal that "men in the South, they are a little effeminate".

He added:

They just have effeminate mannerisms. If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say – and I'm fine with gay people, that's all right – but my gaydar is 60-70 percent. But he's not, I think, so I don't know. Again, I couldn't care less. I'm accepting.

Schweitzer's comments dutifully made their way around the internet and cable TV, generating some jokes about effeminate southerners and probably derailing Schweitzer's long-shot hopes at representing the Democratic Party in the 2016 presidential election.

Schweitzer himself has a certain flair for the dramatic: as governor, he vetoed numerous bills using a large, hot branding iron in the shape of the word 'VETO' to get his point across. His wink-and-nod at Cantor's sexuality could be read as just another attempt to grab national headlines by branding the former Republican leader a 'HOMO'.

But when I heard Schweitzer's remarks, I thought about the long legacy of effeminate southern men – and particularly the image of lisping, land-owning lads from days gone by.

That's right: As a scholar of gender and sexuality studies and American politics, and a gay man from the South, I think Schweitzer may have a point. For me, Schweitzer's comments recall populist criticisms of southern aristocrats from centuries ago. In fact, I think he might have hit the nail on the head.

Well, perhaps "head" is too strong a word: I have no doubt that Eric Cantor is a happily married man, and I'm sure that his wife and children will enjoy having him around the house now that he won't be around the House any more. I just mean that the figure of the effeminate southern man has a history that Schweitzer's comments accurately evoked.

In the early years of the Republic, much of the South was divided between the landholding, slave-owning lowcountry, and the more rural, hardscrabble upcountry. People in the upcountry tended to be deeply religious yeoman farmers and tradesmen, the ideal citizens of Thomas Jefferson's imaginings: pious, hardworking, and a little bit rough around the edges. There was always a tension between these "salt-of-the-earth" types and their lowcountry counterparts – who tended to be richer, more politically connected, and, well, a little bit dandy-ish.

Lowcountry men weren't officially gay, you see; the term "homosexual"wasn't actually coined until the late 19th century. But there was an unspoken sense among the hard-working upcountry folk that the lowcountry men just weren't quite manly enough. The institution of slavery played a big part in this, as men who needed to own other human beings to make a profit were viewed as not butch enough to do the work themselves.

Everyone from Adam Smith to Karl Marx agreed that, to be a man, hard work was required. Masculinity was – and still is – defined in part by one's ability to work. Slave owners' refusal to produce wealth with their own heads and hands made their virility somehow questionable. The image of the southern dandy with his silk hat and seersucker suit satisfied a populist imagination that viewed effete southern slave-owners with disdain.

Today, that effeminate southern dandy lives on, if in modified form. Cantor is only the most recent southern Republican to have his sexuality whispered about. Rumors have swirled around Texas Governor Rick Perry (which he's denied), despite his recent comments that being gay is like being an alcoholic: you can put the habit down if you try hard enough (spoken like someone who's in recovery). And South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has dealt with similar backbiting for years – most recently when a rival in the Republican primary called him "ambiguously gay" – despite hilariously-worded denials. Whether Perry or Graham are practicing homosexuals isn't the point: accusing them of being gay is part of a long history of questioning the virility – and thereby the abilities – of southern men in positions of power.

The truth is, the image of the southern elite is kinda gay, and Schweitzer's not a homophobe – he was just boning up on some good ol'-fashioned populist elite-hating. Good luck to him at besting Hillary, though – she's spent a lot of time with powerful southern men herself.