Rightists Have Always Been Obsessed With Homosexuality

Rightists through history-- always looking for easy scapegoats for a policy of divisiveness-- have been obsessed with homosexuality. This week we saw Florida's Tea Party junior senator, Marco Rubio, shrilly threatening to scuttle his own immigration bill if it includes protections for LGBT families.

While discussing Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) proposed amendment to the immigration bill-- which would grant same-sex couples the same protections as heterosexual couples by making the law recognize “any marriage entered into full compliance with the laws of the State or foreign country within which such marriage was performed”-- Rubio insisted that he could not abide by such a rule.

“If this bill has something in it that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill. I’m done,” Rubio said, according to Yahoo! News.“I’m off it, and I’ve said that repeatedly. I don’t think that’s going to happen and it shouldn’t happen. This is already a difficult enough issue as it is.”

Leahy introduced the amendment on Tuesday, after previously withdrawing it under pressure from Republicans while the Senate Judiciary Committee was reviewing the bill.

“Seeking equal protection under our laws for the LGBT community is the right thing to do,” Leahy said. “I withheld my anti-discrimination amendment during the Senate Judiciary Committee markup. As the entire Senate turns to debate the immigration bill, the fight for equality must go on.”

Despite Rubio’s past rhetoric painting immigration reform as an urgent humanitarian issue, it’s hardly surprising to learn that he’s happy to scrap the whole thing unless it discriminates against LGBT couples. After all, if Rubio does indeed pursue the presidency in 2016, he will need to significantly shore up his right flank to survive a Republican primary.

Halfway round the world-- and two thousand years ago-- a very uptight Emperor Augustus exiled his granddaughter, Julia the Younger, to Isole Tremiti, a tiny archipelago off the coast of southeastern Italy in he Adriatic Sea. She had committed adultery and she died there. Later, in the early 1900s, when Italy embarked on rebuilding an empire, they used the Tremiti Islands as a prison for dissidents from the conquered province of Libya. When Mussolini took over he decided to use one of the islands, San Domino (the only one with a sandy beach and, today something of a tourist mecca) as an internment camp for gays. As obsessed with homosexuality as Rubio or any other right-wing loon, Mussolini claimed Italy had no homosexuals-- "In Italy there are only real men."

Seventy-five years ago in Fascist Italy, a group of gay men were labeled "degenerate," expelled from their homes and interned on an island. They were held under a prison regime-- but some found life in the country's first openly gay community a liberating experience.

...Back in the late 1930s the archipelago played a part in the effort by Benito Mussolini's Fascists to suppress homosexuality.

Gay men undermined the image that the dictator wanted to project of Italian manhood. "Fascism is a virile regime. So the Italians are strong, masculine, and it's impossible that homosexuality can exist in a Fascist regime," says professor of history at the University of Bergamo, Lorenzo Benadusi.

So the strategy was to cover up the issue as much as possible.

No discriminatory laws were passed. But a climate was created in which open manifestations of homosexuality could be vigorously suppressed.

...The whole episode has been largely forgotten.

It's thought that nobody who endured this punishment is still alive today, and there are few detailed accounts of what went on there.

But in their book, The Island and the City, researchers Gianfranco Goretti and Tommaso Giartosi talk of dozens of men, most but not all from Catania, enduring harsh conditions on San Domino.

They would arrive handcuffed, and then be housed in large, spartan dormitories with no electricity or running water.

"We were curious because they were called 'the girls'," says Carmela Santoro, an islander who was just a child when the gay exiles began to arrive.

"We would go and watch them get off the boat... all dressed up in the summer with white pants-- with hats.

"And we would watch in awe-- 'Look at that one, how she moves!' But we had no contact with them."

Another islander, Attilio Carducci, remembers how a bell would ring out at 8pm every day, when the men were no longer allowed outside.

"They would be locked inside the dormitories, and they were under the supervision of the police," he says.

"My father always spoke well of them. He never had anything bad to say about them-- and he was the local Fascist representative."

...[S]ome of the few accounts given by former exiles make clear that life was not all bad on San Domino.

It seems that the day-to-day prison regime was comparatively relaxed.

Unwittingly, the Fascists had created a corner of Italy where you were expected to be openly gay.

For the first time in their lives, the men were in a place where they could be themselves-- free of the stigma that normally surrounded them in devoutly Catholic 1930s Italy.

What this meant to the exiles was explained in a rare interview with a San Domino veteran, named only as Giuseppe B-- published many years ago in the gay magazine, Babilonia-- who said that in a way the men were better off on the island.

"In those days if you were a femminella [a slang Italian word for a gay man] you couldn't even leave your home, or make yourself noticed-- the police would arrest you," he said of his home town near Naples.

"On the island, on the other hand, we would celebrate our Saint's days or the arrival of someone new... We did theatre, and we could dress as women there and no-one would say anything."

And he said that of course, there was romance, and even fights over lovers.

...It is deeply ironic that in the Italy of that time, they could find a degree of freedom only on a prison island.

The party of gay and lesbian rights activists who gathered on the archipelago the other day put down a plaque in memory of the exiles.

It will be a permanent reminder of Mussolini's persecution of homosexuals.

"This is necessary, because nobody speaks of what happened in those years," said one of the activists, Ivan Scalfarotto, a Member of Parliament.

And the suffering hasn't ended for Italy's gay community, he says. They are no longer shackled and shipped off to islands-- but even now they are not regarded as "class A" citizens.

There is still no real social stigma attached to homophobia in Italy, Scalfarotto says, and the state doesn't extend legal rights of any kind to gay or lesbian couples.

Their struggle for equality goes on.

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Will Hanabusa's Political Cowardice on LGBT Issues Come Into Play In The Hawai'i Senate Race?

Last week we took a look at a contentious Senate race shaping up in Hawai'i between progressive incumbent Brian Schatz and more conservative (and corrupt) Colleen Hanabusa. At the time I mentioned that "she can be counted on to vote with Democrats on issues like Choice (though not marriage equality)." I've had some pushback from the Choice community claiming she's not been a good ally on women's health issues-- and we'll get to that in another post-- and some pushback from Hanabusa's own allies saying she's a good ally on LGBT issues. "She's evolved," goes the refrain-- so, basically, a follower, not a leader-- and where Schatz has been a dependable leader on a tough issue that's taken some political courage. Yesterday's Honolulu Star-Advertiser compared the two candidates on LGBT issues, Gay-marriage stance dogs Hanabusa.

In December, when U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa applied for the appointment to replace the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, she told Democratic Party activists she supports marriage equality.

The congresswoman had previously said she always held that marriage should be between a man and a woman. She also had said the definition of marriage should be a matter for the states to decide.

...Hanabusa's evolution places her in line with the Democratic Party's platform, which favors marriage equality. It also puts her in harmony with U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, who was appointed to replace Inouye and is her opponent next year in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Schatz has consistently supported marriage equality.

Her conversion, however, is a potentially sensitive issue for gay-rights activists and their allies in the party's progressive wing. Progressives, along with environmentalists, have become among the most vocal about enforcing fidelity to the party's platform. Marriage equality is a raw subject for many who believe that Democratic politicians have repeatedly let them down.

Gay-rights activists have filed complaints with the party against several state House and Senate Democrats who introduced a proposed constitutional amendment that would have asked voters in November 2014 whether marriage in Hawaii should continue to be defined as between a man and a woman. The constitutional amendment failed at the Legislature, but the complaints are pending.

...[A]s recently as last summer, as Hanabusa was campaigning for re-election in urban Honolulu's 1st Congressional District, she had said the definition of marriage has always been a matter for the states to decide.

Last spring, after President Barack Obama announced that he supported marriage equality, completing his own evolution on the issue, Hanabusa had said she had always believed that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Michael Golojuch Jr., chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered caucus, said Hanabusa had the ideal chance to disclose that she changed her position when she was running for re-election or when Obama made his own announcement. Instead, he said, her revelation did not come until December, when she wanted the appointment to fill the Inouye vacancy.

"It was like pulling teeth to get a statement from her at Christmastime when we were looking at replacing Senator Inouye," he said.

Several gay-rights advocates also blame Hanabusa-- who has sought to distinguish herself from Schatz based on her experience, including, among other things, the heavy lifting she often did on legislation in the state Senate-- for the failure of a civil unions bill in the Senate in 2009.

The state House had approved a bill that would have allowed gay couples to enter into civil unions and receive the same rights as marriage under state law. Hanabusa and other Senate leaders initially indicated there were enough votes in the Senate for the bill, but that support wobbled after public protests from religious conservatives.

After the bill stalled in a divided Senate Judiciary and Government Operations Committee, Hanabusa and others suggested the bill could be pulled from the committee.

But Hanabusa, an attorney, also warned other senators that the bill would likely lead to a lawsuit by gay-rights advocates who would demand marriage equality, citing the successful legal challenge to a civil unions law in Connecticut.

At the last moment, as supporters finally got the bill to the Senate floor, Hanabusa and other Senate leaders engineered an amendment that expanded the legislation to also cover heterosexual couples. The amendment killed the bill as time ran out on the session.

The Senate, under Hanabusa's leadership, did approve a civil unions bill that applied to both gay and heterosexual couples in 2010, legislation also passed by the House in a dramatic end-of-session vote before being vetoed by then-Gov. Linda Lingle. A similar bill was signed into law by Gov. Neil Abercrombie in 2011.

"From my historical perspective, Hanabusa was not our friend when it came to HB 444," Golojuch said of the civil unions fight in 2009.

As her excuse for dragging her feet on marriage equality, Hanabusa whines that "It has taken the nation time to arrive at this point." But the real story is that it has taken Colleen Hanabusa time to arrive at this point. A friend of mine in Honolulu pointed out that "when Hawaii was using its traditions of tolerance and inclusion and Aloha for all, to lead the nation on marriage rights-- Colleen Hanabusa stood in the way. Why choose a politician who waits for the winds to shift, when Hawai'i already has a Senator who helps lead the way? Why choose a politician who changes her position only when the future arrives, when Hawaii already has a Senator who helps shape the future in Hawaii's image?"

You can probably guess that my friend in Honolulu is voting for Schatz, who you can now find on the Blue America Senate page with other progressives fighting off conservatives in the 2014 election cycle.

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How Does A Republican Know If He's Gay Or Not?

Let's take the best known Republican closet cases in Congress-- your Lindsey Grahams and Aaron Schocks-- out of the equation for a moment and look at the Ryan and Ryan Op-Ed in Last Sunday's NY Times, Homophobic? Maybe You're Gay without that crutch. Ryan and Ryan start with a simple question millions of Americans have asked themselves for years: "Why are political and religious figures who campaign against gay rights so often implicated in sexual encounters with same-sex partners?" This is something that haunts the hate-filled far right of American politics for decades. The louder and more strident an anti-gay politician or activist, the more likely that they're obsession is a sign of an internal struggle with homosexuality. Literally hundreds of anti-gay right-wing fanatics have been caught with, as the Dead Boys used to sing, with the meat in their mouth. Homosexuality doesn't ruin anyone's life; closets and bigotry do though.

One theory is that homosexual urges, when repressed out of shame or fear, can be expressed as homophobia. Freud famously called this process a “reaction formation”-- the angry battle against the outward symbol of feelings that are inwardly being stifled. Even Mr. Haggard seemed to endorse this idea when, apologizing after his scandal for his anti-gay rhetoric, he said, “I think I was partially so vehement because of my own war.”

It’s a compelling theory-- and now there is scientific reason to believe it. In this month’s issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we and our fellow researchers provide empirical evidence that homophobia can result, at least in part, from the suppression of same-sex desire.

Our paper describes six studies conducted in the United States and Germany involving 784 university students. Participants rated their sexual orientation on a 10-point scale, ranging from gay to straight. Then they took a computer-administered test designed to measure their implicit sexual orientation. In the test, the participants were shown images and words indicative of hetero- and homosexuality (pictures of same-sex and straight couples, words like “homosexual” and “gay”) and were asked to sort them into the appropriate category, gay or straight, as quickly as possible. The computer measured their reaction times.

The twist was that before each word and image appeared, the word “me” or “other” was flashed on the screen for 35 milliseconds-- long enough for participants to subliminally process the word but short enough that they could not consciously see it. The theory here, known as semantic association, is that when “me” precedes words or images that reflect your sexual orientation (for example, heterosexual images for a straight person), you will sort these images into the correct category faster than when “me” precedes words or images that are incongruent with your sexual orientation (for example, homosexual images for a straight person). This technique, adapted from similar tests used to assess attitudes like subconscious racial bias, reliably distinguishes between self-identified straight individuals and those who self-identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

Using this methodology we identified a subgroup of participants who, despite self-identifying as highly straight, indicated some level of same-sex attraction (that is, they associated “me” with gay-related words and pictures faster than they associated “me” with straight-related words and pictures). Over 20 percent of self-described highly straight individuals showed this discrepancy.

Notably, these “discrepant” individuals were also significantly more likely than other participants to favor anti-gay policies; to be willing to assign significantly harsher punishments to perpetrators of petty crimes if they were presumed to be homosexual; and to express greater implicit hostility toward gay subjects (also measured with the help of subliminal priming). Thus our research suggests that some who oppose homosexuality do tacitly harbor same-sex attraction.

What leads to this repression? We found that participants who reported having supportive and accepting parents were more in touch with their implicit sexual orientation and less susceptible to homophobia. Individuals whose sexual identity was at odds with their implicit sexual attraction were much more frequently raised by parents perceived to be controlling, less accepting and more prejudiced against homosexuals.

It’s important to stress the obvious: Not all those who campaign against gay men and lesbians secretly feel same-sex attractions. But at least some who oppose homosexuality are likely to be individuals struggling against parts of themselves, having themselves been victims of oppression and lack of acceptance. The costs are great, not only for the targets of anti-gay efforts but also often for the perpetrators. We would do well to remember that all involved deserve our compassion.

It's just over 3 years now that California's leading anti-gay conservative politician, state Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), was arrested, drunk, with a young male prostitute in his car. Thinking back as to why Ashburn chose the hell-on-earth so many gay conservatives do-- a sick life in a dark, morbid closet-- he points to a childhood experience. "When I was in sixth grade, the police had a raid in the sand dunes [near San Luis Obispo] and a bunch of gay men were arrested, probably charged with indecent activity. That sticks in my mind-- the publicity and the shame around it. One of my teachers was one of the people. The talk among the kids, the talk among the adults, the talk in the community, the press-- at that time the choice was pretty clear: If you were gay and open, it was a life of shame, ridicule, innuendo about molesting and perversion. It was a dark life. Given that choice of whether you come out or whether you're in secret, I mean, there really wasn't a choice."

So Ashburn got married, had children... and lived a double life, filled with fear and (self) loathing. How did this impact his career, a career marked with any-gay hysteria? And here he sounds exactly like any closeted GOP anti-gay bigot in Congress, like Patrick McHenry (R-NC), like Miss McConnell (R-KY), like Trent Franks (R-AZ), like Dave Camp (R-MI), all of whom live double lives with poor deceived women they've married for the sake of political careers. Ashburn:

The best I can do is to say that I was hiding. I was so in terror I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic "no" vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation. This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I'm truly sorry for that.

"It is unfortunate he helped spread the bigotry that forced him to stay in the closet," said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, a group supporting gay marriage. "We hope he now takes this opportunity to educate people in his district and throughout the state that his sexual orientation is irrelevant."

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Still-active NBA center Jason Collins comes out -- is this the "breakthrough" we've been waiting for?

by Ken

Okay, in connection with the coming out of Jason Collins (about which Howie wrote earlier today), it's fair to note that the 12-year NBA veterans, who split the past season between the Boston Celtics and the Washington Wizards, is 34 and a free agent -- i.e., a player without a contract, and at this stage of his career at best a "fill-in"-type player. So maybe it's not exactly the scenario some of us have fantasized about, of a star player in one of the "big four" sports leagues (Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League) to come out in something like the prime of his career.

Still, Jason is far from ready to pack it in, and has made his decision to own up publicly to who he is even as he faces the process of finding a new team to play for. And I think there should be a fair amount of interest in the inside look he's chosen to give us at this thought process. As ThinkProgress's Travis Waldron reported this afternoon (links onsite):

Jason Collins, a 12-year National Basketball Association veteran who played the 2013 season for the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards, became the first active openly gay male in the four major American professional sports today, when he came out in a self-written article that will appear in the May 6 issue of Sports Illustrated.

“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay,” the first sentence, one that may go down as momentous as any written about sports before, reads. It is triumphant, a declaration the world of sports has been anticipating from someone — anyone — for months if not years. There have been gay pioneers in sports before — Billie Jean King was outed in 1981 and Martina Navritilova came out that same year — but in men’s sports, the only open athletes were those who had already finished their careers.

But behind the simple declaration that began the piece is a more telling story about where that movement still stands. Jason Collins was not open to any of the hundreds of men he’s called teammates, and he spent months debating the decision. In Washington, he wrote, he watched the Supreme Court debate the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, pained that he couldn’t speak openly about who he really was. By then he had determined he needed to be open, but he waited until after the season so as to keep his personal life from becoming a “distraction” for his team and his colleagues:

Loyalty to my team is the real reason I didn’t come out sooner. When I signed a free-agent contract with Boston last July, I decided to commit myself to the Celtics and not let my personal life become a distraction. When I was traded to the Wizards, the political significance of coming out sunk in. I was ready to open up to the press, but I had to wait until the season was over.

A free agent who has become a journeyman in recent years, Collins played just nine minutes per game in six appearances after being traded to the Wizards. Now in search of a new team, Collins used the piece not just to describe why he came out now — “I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. I want to march for tolerance, acceptance and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, ‘Me, too,’” he wrote — but also to let future teammates and perhaps executives know that he wouldn’t be gawking at them in the showers either:

I’ve been asked how other players will respond to my announcement. The simple answer is, I have no idea. I’m a pragmatist. I hope for the best, but plan for the worst. The biggest concern seems to be that gay players will behave unprofessionally in the locker room. Believe me, I’ve taken plenty of showers in 12 seasons. My behavior wasn’t an issue before, and it won’t be one now. My conduct won’t change. I still abide by the adage, “What happens in the locker room stays in the locker room.” I’m still a model of discretion.

This is the true shame of the in-the-closet culture of sexuality in sports, where athletes like Collins and Robbie Rogers, the soccer player who came out as gay and promptly retired in February, feel a tinge of selfishness and guilt when they finally open up about who they really are. . . .

It's worth noting that the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive, a far cry from what one would have expected even a couple of years ago. It's a measure of progress that the assholes have a harder time now expressing their asshole-ism. Which doesn't mean they won't be heard from. ThinkProgress's Annie-Rose Strasser reports("ESPN Sportscaster Immediately Trashes First Out NBA Player: Jason Collins Is Not 'A Christian'"):

An ESPN sportscaster went on the air on Monday to publicly gay-bash Jason Collins, the NBA player who came out Monday morning in an emotional op-ed, the first active male player of a major American sport to come out.

Speaking on ESPN's Outside rhe Lines, Chris Broussard said that he would "not characterize [Collins] as a Christian." He made the comments in front of his openly gay colleague LZ Granderson:

BROUSSARD: Personally, I don't believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly, like premarital sex between heterosexuals. If you're openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says you know them by their fruits. It says that, you know, that's a sin. If you're openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, whatever it maybe, I believe that's walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don't think the bible would characterize them as a Christian.

Granderson reacted strongly to Broussard's comments, saying, "I really don't need Chris or anyone else telling me if I'm a Christian because Jesus tells me I am."

Broussard has previously written that he believes the NBA is "ready" for the first out player. But in that same essay, he also said it would make him "a little uncomfortable" to shower with a gay teammate. He also cast his doubt that being gay is biological, writing, "there are many scientists on both sides of the genetic debate, and I believe a truly objective person would admit the biological evidence for homosexuality is far from definitive."

Left unclear is what bearing Chris B's views of "Christian" behavior are thought to have on the NBA or anything else on the planet.

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Some straight people really are grasping that LGBT people really are entitled to basic human rights like hospital visitations -- but lots of them aren't

Research Medical Center's behavior would have been revolting and unacceptable even if there weren't any applicable law, but in fact there is.

by Ken

I suppose you could look at it the other way: that it represents progress of a sort when racists and bigots get crazy when you call them racists and bigots. Once upon a time they wouldn't have given a damn.

Same deal now with anti-LGBT bigots. Where once they would have been proud to be called that, now more and more of them bristle at the notion that they're hate-mongers. They're just deeply immersed in their faith, they insist. Bulltwaddle. Bigots and hate-mongers are bigots and hate-mongers.

Just recently I took strong exception to the insanely ridiculous argument made by far-right AZ Rep. Matt Salmon to his gay son Matt that he can't support "LGBT rights" because they aren't a legal issue. That's standing reality on its head. When people can be summarily fired, can be denied housing, can be denied shared-property and property-inheritance rights, and can be refused participation in and access to sick partners, just to hit the higher points on the list of basic human rights that LGBT people are routinely denied, what could you possibly call it except a legal issue? If you've got a working brain, that is. And if you aren't just a lying sack of filth.

And I followed up with the screamingly outrageous, unconscionable case of Florida journalist Billy Manes, who while coping with the sudden, unexpected death of his life partner, Alan Jordan found the partner's relatives not only denying his existence but stealing not just the property that Billy and Alan had owned jointly but even walking off with property that was in Billy's name.

Billy was way more understanding of their grief than he had reason to be. After all, these are people who pretended to love a man whose basic identity they denied and despised. They should all be rotting in prison until they can explain why their behavior was demonic.

IT OCCURS TO ME NOW THAT THERE ARE
TWO KINDS OF RESPONSES TO THESE CASES

There are, on the one hand, straight people to whom it's simply never occurred that rights they consider so basic that they don't even think of them as rights are denied to LGBT people for no reason other than that they're lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. And then there are the monsters like Alan Jordan's family and the senior Matt Salmon, who are merely insistent on their God-given right, even obligation, to bully and hate. They're the lying liars who bray that LGBT people are demanding some kind of "special rights."

I don't suppose that second category will "get" this instance of outrageous hospital behavior either. But I'm hoping that there are a lot of straight people who just didn't realize. Our BuzzFeed colleague Chris Geidner reports.

Federal Officials Aim For "Speedy" Response Following Missouri Hospital Arrest

After the arrest of gay patient's partner in Missouri's Research Medical Center, federal officials are "working to gather the facts and determine what steps to take in a speedy manner."

posted on April 11, 2013 at 6:13pm EDT

Chris Geidner | BuzzFeed Staff

WASHINGTON -- Federal officials are "aware" of the Missouri hospital that had a man arrested for refusing to leave the bedside of his partner, and "are working to gather the facts and determine what steps to take in a speedy manner," a Medicare/Medicaid spokesman said Thursday afternoon.

News spread Thursday about the arrest of Roger Gorley, who had been trying to visit at Research Medical Center in Kansas City with the man he described in a Facebook note as his husband, Allen Mansell. The two were joined in a civil union.

When one of Mansell's family members asked him to leave, he refused and was later arrested. According to a note posted on Research Medical Center's Facebook page Thursday afternoon, "This was an issue of disruptive and belligerent behavior by the visitor that affected patient care." The hospital also states in the post that the decision was unrelated to sexual orientation.

At President Obama's direction during his first term, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued regulations mandating that hospitals that receive Medicaid or Medicare funds allow patients the right to have visitors of their choosing, regardless of sexual orientation.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which enforces the regulations through coordination with the states, is looking into the situation. CMS spokesman Brian Cook told BuzzFeed Thursday afternoon, "CMS is aware of this specific issue and we are working to gather the facts and determine what steps to take in a speedy manner."

"All Americans are guaranteed the right to receive hospital visitors that they designate, and there are specific protections in our rules for same-sex couples across the country," Cook added. "We take alleged violations of federal rules around hospital visitation very seriously."

Guidance issued by CMS on the regulations includes the following: "When a patient who is not incapacitated has designated, either orally to hospital staff or in writing, another individual to be his/her representative, the hospital must involve the designated representative in the development and implementation of the patient's plan of care."

Now the hospital is claiming, of course, that it wasn't the offending visitor's gayness that was at issue. It was his uncooperative behavior. I'm prepared to believe that he got a tad demonstrative when he was forcibly ejected from his sick partner's presence. I guess if by chance the hospital gestapo had attempted such a forcible ejection with a female partner, she would have been expected to go quietly like a good "little woman."

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How Many House Democrats Are Still Unevolved On LGBT Equality?

Boehner happily swearing in a very unevolved Pete Gallego (D-TX), the one freshman Blue Dog

With Bill Nelson (D-FL) finally getting on board the equality train there are no Democratic senators left except for ones who probably go back and forth in their minds every night about whether they should switch to the Republican Party or not, like the idiot from Arkansas who bragged on film about his sadly low IQ. He also has the lowest score on LGBT equality issues of any Democrat in the Senate, a 50%, same as Susan Collins (R-ME), closet case Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and John McCain (R-AZ). Aside from Pryor, the only unevolved Democrats on this matter are arch-conservatives from red states: Tim Johnson (SD), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Joe Manchin (WV). I suspect Landrieu's reticence-- cowardice?-- to embrace equality will hurt her badly with her New Orleans base and she'll lose her reelection bid in 2014. She's using an ass-backwards strategy that is always a loser for Democrats; Republicans have their own candidates and they're not going to rally around a Democrat just because she's reluctantly anti-gay. Tom Johnson is retiring so it will be interesting to see how his son Brendan, a probable candidate for the seat, handles the issue.

The evolution of conservative House members has gotten less attention than conservative senators like Mark Kirk (R-IL), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Bob Casey (D-PA) announcing they've come around. One longtime homophobe with a miserable record on LGBT issues has been Blue Dog Jim Cooper, whose Nashville district is far more evolved than he is. Recently he gave up on the bigotry too though and announced he would back marriage equality. Until now, Cooper has had a dismal lifetime crucial vote score of 28.57 on LGBT issues, worse than libertarian-leaning Republicans. We had a hint Cooper had started evolving last July when homophobic fanatic Steve King (R-IA) proposed an amendment to a defense budget that would prevent gay soldiers from marrying on bases. Although 17 of Cooper's Blue Dog and ConservaDem colleagues backed King, Cooper actually voted with the Democrats. Several of the 17 who voted with King have since been defeated in primaries and general elections but 9 remain in the House today-- John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA), Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Gene Green (TX), Dan Lipinksi (IL), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) and Nick Rahall (WV). A tenth, Blue Dog homophobe Joe Donnelly is now in the Senate; he endorsed marriage equality on his Facebook page yesterday. There are also two freshmen who have been elected since then who campaigned on anti-equality platforms, Bill Enyart (IL) and Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX).

There's still some hope for more evolution from some of this lot, though. When the GOP tried to strip protection for gays and lesbians out of the domestic violence legislation in February, only 2 Democrats voted with the GOP-- anti-gay fanatics Mike McIntyre and Dan Lipinski. 60 Republicans voted with the Democrats against the amendment.

Echoing a growing number of Democratic politicians, Rep. Jim Cooper said Tuesday his support for gay marriage developed over his years in office and that he sees the issue mattering for economic development as well as civil rights.

Tennessee Republicans, meanwhile, continued to express opposition while saying the issue is one for the states.

The comments of Cooper, a Nashville Democrat, came in an interview and followed his prepared statement from the day before in which he said he favors recognition of same-sex marriages while recognizing some churches may continue to object.

"We're just talking about civil marriages here," he emphasized again Tuesday.

"A number of groups are trying to figure out what to do," he said. "The nation is working its way through this now."

He added, "My views have evolved over time."

..."My denomination changed its mind (on gay marriage)," he said of the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal House of Bishops, meeting in a national convention in July 2012, OK'd priests blessing same-sex couples but stipulated a blessing did not equate to approving marriage. The latter remained a matter for civil authorities, it said.

Cooper said he was also pleased to see Davidson County adopt a policy that prohibits private-sector firms wanting county business from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender.

"The principle of non-discrimination is important," he said.

And if firms from states that recognize gay marriage want to relocate offices and employees to Tennessee, the congressman said, they may want assurances such marriages will be accepted in the Volunteer State.

"We need to be as welcoming in Tennessee as we can be," Cooper said.

Tennessee, however, adopted a state constitutional amendment in 2006 that says marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Congressional records show Cooper voted in 2006 for a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman as well.

Every Blue America candidate favors marriage equality, of course. Yesterday I asked the Democrat running against John Boehner in western Ohio if he feels this is an issue people in his district are playing attention to. He does-- and he's very aware that his position is very different from Boehner's. Andy Hounshell: "I want everyone to have the opportunity to be as happy as my wife and I are. It's not just about saying you are married either. There is much more to it than that. You have to be legally married to receive medical benefits, survivor benefits, etc. There is no logical reason why two consenting adults should be denied the same opportunity that I have."

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"All I'm asking for is compassion and dignity," says a grieving man -- I say he should be out for those scumbags' blood

"On top of my grief and uncertainty and horror, I found myself having to fight to claim what our legal documents already said was mine. I obtained a court order to correct the probate and to get the items that had been removed from my house returned. However, after thousands of dollars and months of legal wrangling I gave up. I sacrificed most of the assets to which I was legally entitled for the sake of my sanity. . . .

"[A]s difficult as the last year has been, I've been incredibly fortunate. I knew my rights. I had attorneys looking out for me. I had a strong circle of supportive friends and family. I had a job that cared about my personal situation.

"Not every gay man or lesbian is so lucky. . . ."

-- Florida journalist Billy Manes, writing about the
aftermath of the death of his partner, Alan Jordan

by Ken

On Monday I wrote about the situation of young Matt Salmon, the early-20s son of far-far-right-wing AZ GOP Rep. Matt Salmon. It's another case of a Republican pol with a gay son, but in this case, unlike that of OH Sen. Rob Portman and his impressive son Will, a Yale junior whose Yale Daily News guest column I had shared earlier (but then got the link wrong! I've corrected it, and it should be right here), Representative Salmon says himself that he hasn't "evolved" to the point of supporting marriage equality. (We also saw the lovely and moving "It Gets Better" that young Matt posted awhile back as "Matt in Phoenix," and if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to click through to one of the links.)

I should add that, no, the congressman doesn't use the term "marriage equality." When he's forced to talk about such subjects, as unfortunately for him he now has to because he values his relationship with his son, he talks about "LGBT rights." Frankly he's not a fan of "LGBT rights." In particular, he says they're not a "legal issue."

Which can only mean that he doesn't believe LGBT folk are entitled to such rights, because pretty much the whole point of rights is that they are overwelmingly a legal issue. How could they possibly not be? If a right isn't legally enforcible, it isn't a right.

On the most obvious level, and way more important to a huge number of LGBT people than same-sex marriage, is legal protection against discrimination in housing and employment. When you can be freely discriminated against either, or flat-out denied them, just because you're L, G, B, or T, as you can be in most states, you have been denied one helluva lot of rights that straight people don't give a second thought, or maybe even a first.

But that's far from all we're talking about. LGBT people are routinely denied a whole range of legal rights and protections that to most straight people are so obvious and fundamental that they don't even think of them as "rights." I mentioned Monday that I'd had passed along a "for instance" that had me more or less bouncing off the walls. And if it doesn't enrage you, well, what can I say?

The following letter was posted on the Equality Florida blog with the title "Death So Often Brings Out the Worst in People," was written by Orlando journalist Billy Manes to the Florida State Senate committee members who were scheduled yesterday to consider a long-stalled domestic-partnership bill, which of course falls well short of the marriage equality being fought for in other states but apparently still beyond the reach of Florida LGBT citizens.

Dear Senators,

I came to Tallahassee on March 12 to deliver the following testimony before your committee with regard to SB 196. The bill was temporarily postponed that day, but seeing as you're hearing it again on April 1 -- and I am not able to deliver it in person -- I hope you'll take a moment to consider my story. I also hope that you will do the right thing and vote "Yes" on the domestic partnership registry. It could really help people when they need it the most. It would have helped me. Thank you for your time.

Billy Manes


Staff Writer, Orlando Weekly

Orlando, FL

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for having me. My name is Billy Manes. I'm a journalist from Orlando, Florida. I wish I were here to talk about someone else's story, but I'm not.

I met my partner, Alan Jordan, in January 2001. We were opposites -- he a former football player at Auburn University with a southern drawl and the politics to match, me, a liberal extrovert. But nonetheless we quickly fell in love. In 2002, we bought a house together, though my name wasn't on the deed, and we set about forming our family -- our dogs, our friends, our birthday parties and backyard barbeques. He was my rock, my support. I was full of big ideas, and he was heavy with reason. When I ran for mayor of Orlando in 2005, he was my treasurer and coach. He believed in me. It would be no exaggeration to say that he saved my life.

I supported him too. When he got his pilot's license, I bit my lip and flew in his single-engine puddle-jumper. When his father died in 2006 and he made the decision to commute back and forth to Georgia to take care of his mother, I held down the fort in Orlando. When his health started to deteriorate, I was there every step of the way -- doctor's offices, therapists, disability, you name it.

In 2008, as Amendment 2 loomed, we contacted an attorney and executed all of the documents available to LGBT families in Florida: power of attorney, health surrogate, and a will, among others. We were as much a legal couple as the laws of the state of Florida permitted us to be.

On Easter Sunday of last year, after a long battle with health problems and depression, Alan shot himself in the chest in the backyard of our house. I screamed; I tried to resuscitate him; I called 911. But it was no use.

He was gone.

The police came. They checked my hands for gunpowder. After three hours, the ambulance took away his body.

Before I'd even washed his blood out of my hair, Alan's brother showed up on my doorstep. In the next 24 hours, he identified Alan's body at the morgue, had it cremated without my knowledge or consent, changed his address with the postmaster, and began walking around my house identifying items that the family thought belonged to them: a lawnmower, tools, guns, the commitment rings on my fingers. They ignored the fact that everything in our house belonged to both of us.

I was in shock and distraught, as you can imagine. But I still made clear to them, as I gave them the will that left everything to me, that I wanted to work with the family in a manner that was fair for both of us. I understood that they were in pain -- and that they didn't know that Alan was in a relationship with a man. Because Alan's sexuality was touchy subject in his hometown of Rome, Georgia, his family didn't talk or want to know about his personal life. Alan's brother and a friend of his drove away with two cars that were registered in my name because they thought they were Alan's cars. In my own panic, I let that happen.

I threw a memorial service to celebrate Alan, and hundreds of people showed up -- including the mayor of Orlando and former state representative Scott Plakon. An attorney friend was at the service as well, and offered her services should I need them.

Before we could even file the will in Orange County court, I learned that the family had already opened a probate case listing Alan's mother as his personal representative and sole beneficiary.

What followed was a nightmare. On top of my grief and uncertainty and horror, I found myself having to fight to claim what our legal documents already said was mine. I obtained a court order to correct the probate and to get the items that had been removed from my house returned. However, after thousands of dollars and months and of legal wrangling I gave up. I sacrificed most of the assets to which I was legally entitled for the sake of my sanity.

I don't think that the family was acting capriciously -- at least now I don't. They, like me, were grieving, trying to come to terms with an unspeakable loss. Death so often brings out the worst in people.

I struggled with the idea of coming here today, of making my story public. But in my heart, I know that this is what Alan would have wanted. In fact, as difficult as the last year has been, I've been incredibly fortunate. I knew my rights. I had attorneys looking out for me. I had a strong circle of supportive friends and family. I had a job that cared about my personal situation.

Not every gay man or lesbian is so lucky. Since Alan's death, I've spoken with several members of the LGBT community who, when faced with the devastating death of a partner, lost everything. And this could have been me: My name wasn't on the deed to my house. I could easily have been homeless. I didn't have a right to anything that was in Alan's name—not our mutual savings, not his inheritance, not even our cars – because I didn't have the inherent legal right to inherit Alan's estate, which this Bill would correct. This Bill can save people from suffering through what I went through, at the worst time of my life.

And so I'm here to ask you to right this wrong. I recognize that under the state's constitution, I am unable to marry the person I love. And he's gone anyway. But how can we, as a state, in good conscience, even as we praise the family as the backbone of our society, deny even the most basic, fundamental rights to hundreds of thousands of your constituents who pay their taxes, go to work, and play by the rules?

I don't believe that I'm asking for much. I'm not asking for the right to marry, or the right to a civil union. I'm not even here to ask you to recognize that the love Alan and I shared is equal to the love you have for your spouse, although that would be nice.

All I'm asking for is compassion and dignity. Please don't let that be too much.

Thank you.
Billy Manes

As far as I'm concerned, Billy is being way too understanding of Alan's family when he says, "I don't think that the family was acting capriciously -- at least now I don't. They, like me, were grieving, trying to come to terms with an unspeakable loss." I'm not unmindful of their loss, but I'm also not unmindful of the fact that they didn't even know this person they were grieving for. He hadn't trusted them enough to confide his true self to them, for obviously excellent reasons.

Worse still, their response was an orgy of outright criminality. Not only did they flout Alan's unmistakably explicit understanding of the ownership of all that property that was shared between him and Billy, they actually outright stole property that was in Billy's name. As far as I'm concerned, these people are garbage and outlaws, who should have been required, not just to make full restitution to Billy of all the property they stole, but should have borne all the court costs and spent some time in the hoosegow.

Everywhere they go, there should be signs denouncing them as criminal trash, common thieves, and monsters. And all the people who would behave more or less the way they did in the situation should be just as ashamed. Shamed to the depths of their monstrous souls.

I might buy the elder Matt Salmon's take on "LGBT rights" if he reformulated it to say: It's not just a legal issue. The legal issue should be clearcut, and so too should the moral one be. It really is a matter of the most basic human decency.
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Let's hear directly from AZ GOP Rep. Matt Salmon's gay son Matt

The "It Gets Better" video posted by "Matt in Phoenix"

"It's impossible to be brave without first being afraid."

-- young Matt, replying to a comment posted on his video

by Ken

Howie wrote this morning ("Republican Homophobia in Arizona? Jeff Flake Vs Matt Salmon") about the weekend TV babbling of a couple of Arizona right-wingers, Rep. Matt Salmon and Sen. Jeff Flake, dancing around the issue of same-sex marriage.

The interesting wrinkle is that Representative Salmon has a son who happens to be gay. The congressman made clear that on the issue of marriage equality he's no Rob Portman, not having "evolved" to the "station" that the Ohio Republican senator "apparently has." You'll recall that the senator has changed his position to favor same-sex marriage in good part owing to the evolution set in motion by learning that his son Will is gay.

When Senator Portman went public about Will being gay, it was widely and understandably pointed out that it's a shame this was the only way he was capable of having his consciousness raised. At the same time, he deserved some credit for having it raised.

However obvious it may be, I keep pointing out that the sea change in public opinion about the LGBT community has everything to do with more and more previously hostile or indifferent Americans realizing that they actually know LGBT people -- among their family and friends and coworkers -- and have come to understand that their sexual orientation is simply part of who they are; it doesn't make them better or worse people.

Which brings us back to "Matt in Phoenix," who posted the "It Gets Better" video we see above -- from the inspiring series of videos made by LGBT folks from all walks of life speaking to younger peers to encourage them in their struggles with the same issues they've grappled with. "Matt in Phoenix" is of course the younger Matt Salmon.

Today on washingtonpost.com's "Post Politics" blog, Rachel Weiner posted a piece, "Rep. Matt Salmon: Gay son hasn't changed my views on gay marriage," that includes both the video of Representative Salmon's interview which Howie posted this morning and his son's "It Gets Better" video. Now I don't want to downplay any of what Howie pointed out about the older Matt's right-wing extremism.

But just as it was fascinating to see Yale junior Will Portman's parents through his eyes, as he told his story in a Yale Daily News guest column (which I wrote about in "It's a pretty standard coming-out story, with a couple of wrinkles (like it's a U.S. senator's son)," I think it's intriguing to be able to see young Matt's parents through his eyes.

In her "Post Politics" post Rachel Weiner notes that young Matt --

leads the Arizona Log Cabin Republicans, a pro-gay rights GOP group. In a 2010 interview with the Phoenix New Times, the 22-year-old revealed that he was dating Kent Flake, the second cousin of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). In the article, both young men discussed coming out to their conservative Mormon families.

"The first time I had a conversation with [my father] about it, it did not go well. He was very upset and said some things right off that I know he doesn't really feel," Salmon told the paper. "He's never called me any slurs or anything like that, but he made it clear he didn't like it." The younger Salmon said his father came to support his activism even if he didn't agree with it, but that the struggle for his family's complete acceptance continued.

"It took me 20 years to accept that I'm gay, and to live openly and understand equality issues," he said. "I can't expect them to do it in four months."

Matt's "It Gets Better" video is totally lovely, and I hope you'll watch in its entirety -- to hear him talk about what it was like growing up Mormon and realizing that he was gay, or about summoning the courage to confront the bullies who had beset him in high school -- and having them apologize and even congratulate him on his courage.

I've transcribed just the portion dealing with Matt's parents, and even here what you won't get from the transcript is the image of his emotional upheaval even in 2011 as he talked about it, or the way his tone lightens and he even smiles when he talks about being able to talk to his parents about his dating problems.

I didn't know if my family would ever come around. My parents were very politically opposed to gay equal rights. My mom was president of the organization in Arizona that drafted the 2006 amendment to ban gay marriage in Arizona. She even asked me to help her edit it sometimes. . . . My dad is also a Republican politician. He was in Congress, and he's running for Congress again [in May 2011].

I can tell you, since I've come out, things have changed with my family, but it wasn't until I realized one key thing: If I wanted them to love me and and fully accept me, I had to love and fully accept them too, despite their opinions that might not agree with mine. My parents, they won't see LGBT rights as an issue. They don't see it as a legal issue, but my dad in his campaign now, he has come out publicly and talked with pride about me. My dad told me, and he told a reporter also on the news, that he was proud of me for standing up for what I believe in, for standing up for gay rights. Even though he may not agree with them, he was proud of me for doing it, because that was the way he raised me. And it's true, he did.

I talk to my parents about guys that I've dated, or troubles that I'm having with boys and things like that, and they give me their honest advice, even though they could say, "I don't want to hear it. I don't like you dating guys." They don't. They say, "Maybe he's not right for you. Maybe you should look for somebody else. And someday you'll find a man that makes you happy." And I'm sure that I will.

AT THE TIME YOUNG MATT POSTED HIS VIDEO . . .

. . . there were three comments, and he replied to all of them. I think both the comments and his replies are fascinating.

th3g00dstuff88: Great video Matt. I have a question for you: Are you still LDS? How has the church responded to you being gay? Thanks.

I fully resigned from the church about a year and a half ago. But, I've realized that even though I am not a member any longer, I will always be a Mormon. You can leave the membership, but you can't leave the culture. The church responds as they would, sweep it under, try to retain me while telling me I'm a sinner and considered less than straight members. But, how the church responds doesn't matter, because only I decide my life path, nobody else.

Shyguyx12: Thanks for this great video!! I wish that I was as brave as you.

well, it's impossible to be brave without first being afraid.

kellykak98: I'm sorry what you went through. Your story is very touching. I just hope you know that not ALL Mormons, Catholics, etc. and republicans aren't homophobic. My mom is Catholic and my dad is a Mormon and i was raised Catholic. I'm a conservative republican--more conservative than my parents haha! I'm also a lesbian. I'm 16 years old. My parents LOVE me and don't want me to change! Us Christians love our children no matter what! The ones who don't obviously haven't read the Bible. They aren't true.

I still hold to a lot of republican ideals as well. I understand the individuality that is inherent in humanity.

FINALLY, A CHALLENGE TO REP. SALMON

Young Matt tells us that you and the missus don't see LGBT rights as a "legal issue." Really? So you think your son should be subject to being summarily fired from any job just because he's gay? Or being thrown out of his home, or denied the opportunity to rent or buy one because he's gay? Or being denied a whole range of legal "privileges" -- like common property ownership, hospital visitation, or inheritance, things that are so taken for granted by straight folk that it never even occurs to them to think of them as "privileges."

I put it as a challenge to Senator Portman to do something else, pretty much anything else, to show that he actually grasps the basic issues of human rights involved, though I did offer by way of suggestion (always trying to help, I am) that he might sign on as a co-sponsor of the reintroduced Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). I understand, Representative Salmon, that you haven't evolved to Senator Portman's station on marriage equality. But are you starting to get any glimmering that there may indeed be not just a legal issue but a whole bunch of them attached to what you so casually dismiss as "LGBT rights"? None of which you apparently believe your son should be legally entitled to.

AND IF YOU THINK ISSUES LIKE COMMON PROPERTY
OWNERSHIP AND INHERITANCE ARE TECHNICALITIES . . .

Tomorrow I want to share a "for instance" that was passed along to me today and had me punching the walls. If it doesn't outrage you, then there's really something wrong with you.

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Republican Homophobia In Arizona? Jeff Flake Vs Matt Salmon

In 2004, when the GOP introduced a constitutional amendment to forever ban same-sex marriage, it failed to get the needed 2/3s majority in the House. 191 Republicans (+36 bigoted Democrats) voted for it. 158 Democrats and 27 Republicans voted against it. Three of the Republican closet cases-- David Dreier (R-CA), Mark Foley (R-FL) and Jim Kolbe (R-AZ)-- voted against it. Most of the hypocritical GOP closet cases, like Ed Schrock (R-VA), Denny Hastert (R-IL), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Dave Camp (R-MI), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Phil English (R-PA), and Jim McCrery (R-LA), voted for it. Rob Portman's son, Will, was still 7 years from coming out so, of course, Rob Portman voted for the anti-gay constitutional amendment. And then for DOMA. He's evolved now... after his son came out. But not all congressional parents of gay children have. Matt Salmon is a raging homophobe, an all-around bigoted hatemonger, a hero of the far, far right fringe of the House GOP. He has a gay son-- and he's still voting against equality for gay people. Listen to his son:




Salmon, a hate-filled anti-gay Mormon, is a freshman but his congressional homophobia goes way back to when he was in Congress between 1995 and 2001. He left Congress to run (unsuccessfully) for governor, losing to Democrat Janet Napolitano, who his vicious campaign accused of being a closeted lesbian. Aside from general right-wing claptrap, Salmon's first stint in Congress is best known for his unsuccessful attempt to get Ronald Reagan's face carved into Mount Rushmore. After losing to Napolitano he became a lobbyist for an Inside the Beltway telecommunications group. He was widely considered one of the sleaziest and most disreputable lobbyists in town, setting him up perfectly for another run at Congress after redistricting created a blood red seat in Mesa and the eastern Phoenix suburbs, AZ-05, which includes much of his old district and from which Jeff Flake was retiring to run, successfully, for Jon Kyl's open Senate seat.

Perhaps you watched Senator Flake on Meet the Press yesterday. Flake, also a Mormon gay-hater, has a very homophobic voting record but, unlike Salmon, he senses the winds of change that are blowing down the American highway. Oh, don't get me wrong, Flake is still pretty much a dedicated homophobic bigot-- if not as extreme as Salmon on the issues-- and has every intention of voting against marriage equality for as long as he's in Congress, but what he told Chuck Todd is that he realizes it's "inevitable" that the GOP will change to being less of the hatemonger party-- and perhaps soon.

Todd: Let me ask you on gay marriage. Could you support a Republican presidential candidate some day who supported same-sex marriage?

Flake: Oh, I think that’s inevitable. There will be one and he will receive bipartisan support-- or she will. So I think that yes, the answer is yes.

Todd: And where are you on this issue, you say it’s inevitable. Are you... Lisa Murkowski, a Republican colleague of yours called it evolving on the issue; are you evolving to use her words on this issue?

Flake: I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman I still hold to the traditional definition of marriage.

As you can see in the video above, Salmon likes his gay son-- but not enough to support equality for him. Interestingly, he broke with right-wing extremists who still insist God never created any gays and that it's a "lifestyle choice." In the interview, Salmon seems to endorse his son's assertion that he was "born this way." Which kind of undercuts the whole bigotry thing the Republican Party-- and Salmon-- are clinging to.

“I’m just not there in believing in my heart... It doesn’t mean I don’t have respect, it doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with some of the issues, it means I haven’t evolved to that station, Rob Portman apparently has.”

Sounds like Salmon thinks "evolution" is a good thing and that it's just a matter of time. It also sounds like he's a political coward more eager to please the extremist neanderthals who back him than to support his own son and do what he appears to already knows is the right thing to do.

Matt'n'Jeff, GOP Mormon bigots from Arizona with a message of deranged homophobia

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Can the GOP learn that pretending to be inclusive isn't the same thing as being inclusive?

The result of this deception is very strange to tell,
for when I fool the people I fear, I fool myself as well. . . .
Make believe you're brave, and the trick will take you far.
You may be as brave as you make believe you are.

--  "I Whistle a Happy Tune," from The King and I

"The spectacle of the Republicans, like teenagers longing to be invited to the prom, floundering about in search of more popularity with American voters, would be comical if it didn’t present the sad picture of a once great and proud party—the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower—working its way into near irrelevance."

-- Elizabeth Drew, in "Are the Republicans Beyond
Saving?," in the March 21 NYRB

"“Republicans like [Alaska Rep. Don Young] will soon be extinct, and that's a good thing for the GOP. But in the meantime, when they make these remarks, it makes it harder for those of us who are trying to grow the base of our party."

-- GOP consultant John Weaver ("who has worked for moderate Republicans in recent years") in The Fix's "Don Young and the Archie Bunker Problem"

by Ken

Sorry about the performance of "I Whistle a Happy Tune," but after sampling 20 or 25 "real" performances on YouTube, I was kind of relieved to settle for this one. (Do the people who post these clips really not know how wretched they are?)

You see, we're going to be talking tonight about pretending to be things you aren't. It's a strategy being pressed on 2013 Republicans by consultants as well as voices within the party, and I'm getting the weird feeling that they don't see the difference between pretending to be something and being it. And I couldn't help thinking of Anna in The King and I, and the lesson she tries to teach her son Louis at the top of the show. But the point here, surely (she makes it pretty explicitly), is that in the act of pretending to be brave, you may actually wind up being brave.

I'm not as optimistic about the strategy being pressed on depressed R's.

"Bemused" is what I've been, watching from the sidelines as those R's -- coming as close as they're apparently capable of coming to self-reflection -- at least consider the possibility that their 2012 electoral disaster was self-inflicted, that Republicans had come to be viewed by alamring numbers of U.S. voters as a party of exclusion, as a party whose only mission is to defend the interests of the 1%.

I had occasion to wonder the other day about the claim of some of these self-accusing elements in the party that they need to hearken back to the days of their old "big tent." The Republicans had a big tent? When was this? Even when Richard Nixon was fashioning the new Republican Party by adding Southern racists to the seething Silent Majority of Americans sick to death of challenges to orthodoxy and the status quo, it was a gathering of people housed in a number of modest-size tents coexisting on the same campground because they were all so mad at all those damn commies and hippies and assorted other riffraff out there.

The only difference, really, it seems to me, is that the tents have gotten even smaller. But the purpose of the little tents was always to exclude the people who weren't inside them, even if for strategic purposes they voted in multi-tent unison on a lot of issues, especially when manipulated with the finesse of a Nixon or a Ronald Reagan or even a George W. Bush for as long "Chimpy the Prez" could hold his coaltion of excluders together.

A COALITION OF EXCLUDERS ISN'T THE
EASIEST THING TO HOLD TOGETHER

Rather obviously, you have to wonder how long it's going to be before they start excluding one another. Already, for example, there's a deep fissure between right-wing excluders who worry that they've been somehow perceived as too exclusionary and right-wing excluders who believe that 2012 happened because they weren't exclusionary enough.

I'll leave that to them to slug out. And among many considerations of the implications for Republicans if they don't come to grips with their exclusionary tendencies, I can recommend Elizabeth Drew's "Are the Republicans Beyond Saving?" in the March 21 NYRB, whose opening I quote atop this post. I just want to register a modest note of bemusement about this notion that the R's' problem is being perceived as too exclusionary. As too hating of (take your pick) women, immigrants, Hispanic voters, LGBT voters, etc.

What bemuses me is this apparent notion that the problem is perception. I look at it differently. If you get all huffy about being unloved because mean people keep saying you're bigoted, changing the perception may required that you be less bigoted.

Which brings me to the other piece from which I quoted atop this post, the post "Don Young and the Archie Bunker Problem" by Aaron Blake and Juliet Eilperin today on washingtonpost.com's "The Fix." It begins:

Less than two weeks after the Republican National Committee unveiled its 2012 election autopsy an emphasis on broadening the party's tent, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) used an ethnic slur for Latinos in a radio interview Thursday. Young's comments served as the latest wake-up call for Republicans in their nascent effort to woo a more diverse cross-section of America.

The message: whatever effort they make toward modernizing their brand, there will always be a few Archie Bunkers out there -- people, like the lead character in the 70's sitcom "All in the Family," who are unconcerned with or unwilling to moderate their tone. And these days more than in the past, their offhand remarks can derail the most carefully orchestrated PR campaign.

Young, 79, set off a fresh round of recriminations and hand-wringing among Republican leaders while talking about the people his father employed on his California ranch years ago.

"We used to hire 50 or 60 wetbacks and -- to pick tomatoes," Young said in the interview with KRBD. "You know, it takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It's all done by machine."

Oops!!! Or should I say: Whoops!!!

Now Don Young is an old DWT fave, not so much because he's an excluder and hater as because he's a crook, a man who seems capable of sizing up any situation that comes to his attention from the standpoint "What's in it for me?" (As a result of which, he tends to find himself facing far more than even the normal congressional share of big-league "What's in it for me?" opportunities.)

A constant thread in Aaron Blake and Juliet Eilperin's "Fix" piece is that R's are unjustly associated with louts like Don Young, or singled out for unfair heightened scrutiny, or subjected to a double standard -- the suggestion being that a Democrat could get away with reminiscing about "wetbacks." It seems to me, though, that on the contrary R's get away with far more than they're gotcha-ed for.

Various and sundry Republicans are quoted to the effect that Don Young isn't their guy, and they're all being tarnished by the same brush. And in the particular case of immigration, it's true that some Republicans are less exclusing than "Wetback Don." However, most of the Rs who are "enlightened" on immigration merely have a more "enlightened" view of the importance to the U.S. economy of all that cheap labor, which comes doubly cheap because so many of the immigrant workers -- directly contrary to the myth of being benefits sponges -- don't claim any benefits at all despite all the taxes they pay.

THE OCCASIONAL GOP "INCLUDERS"
ARE APT TO BE SERIAL "EXCLUDERS"

In addition, Republicans who happen to be "includers" with respect to one unfavored group tend to be extra-exclusive with many of the others. So those who may hold arguably inclusive views with regard to, say, immigration, or LGBT equality, are apt to be viral excluders when it comes to, say, the "47%" of so-called "takers not makers." It's a weird world indeed where cynical paper-pushers who produce primarily "deals" that don't produce anything except big profits for themselves and their cronies are considered "makers" while people who do the actual work in our society are dismissed as "takers."

A favorite GOP-apologist theme, for example, is that they're victimized as the perpetrators of a "so-called" War on Women. But again, the best way to answer such objections is to stop waging war on women. During the 2012 campaign, for example, when R's found themselves stuck with the obscenely frothing abortion imbecilities of Senate nominees Todd Akin (Missouri) and Richard Mourdock (Indiana), Howie and I pointed out frequently that there was no difference whatsoever between their beliefs about abortion and the law and those of right-wing darling Paul Ryan. But Ryan, unlike the neanderthal Akin and Mourdock, knows how to put a smiley face on his ignorance and savagery.

If Akin or Mourdock were to try whistling a happy tune, the effect would be creepy. (I think it's important, thought, that we not ignore their pre-2012 electoral successes. They were every bit as creepy before, just not as indiscreet, or perhaps more important, no so brightly spotlit when they were being creepy.) To me, Paul Ryan and the less visibly crackpotty R's are even creepier when they pretend to be wise or just or courageous.

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