Whenever a closeted gay GOP officeholder, candidate, or prominent operative is suddenly forced out of the closet by some act of malfeasance or other scandal, the Republican Noise Machine immediately kicks into high gear, frantically accusing anyone and everyone who dares discuss said GOPer’s activities of hypocritically picking on the poor gay man/woman.
CNN’s Don Lemon has a neat reply: If the Republican Party is such a kind and welcoming home for gays, then why don’t their gays come out on their own? Why do they come out only when they’re forced out for some reason? In the case of Paul Babeu, Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, he came out to his Arizona constituents only after his former lover, a Mexican national named José, accused Babeu — who ran on an anti-immigrant platform — of threatening to deport him should José ever tell anyone that Babeu was gay and was José’s lover.
Democratic candidates like Trevor Thomas and Tammy Baldwin are openly gay and proud of it. By contrast, Mark Neumann, Baldwin’s Republican opponent for Herb Kohl’s Senate seat, is very much anti-gay and is attacking Baldwin because she is gay.
What Lemon, and I suspect most everyone else with an IQ above room temperature, understands, is this:
1. The GOP loves its closet cases, because they’re so much easier to control.
2. If suddenly gay Republicans came out without being dragged out by scandal, that would send a message that the GOP accepts gayness — which means the GOP loses the bigot base that they’ve spent decades cultivating through bigotry-baiting practices such as the Southern Strategy. Na Ga Ha Pen: Without bigotry, they lose.
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