Sometimes, those stereotypes turn out to be true. Namely, that the more homophobic a man is, the more likely he is to have his own conflicted sexuality. A secure man, the story says, doesn't care what gay men do in their bedrooms.
Unless he's the Chair of the Republican National Committee.
Ken Mehlman, President Bush's campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.
Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California's ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.
I do want to say, now, that I admire Mr. Mehlman for finally coming out of the closet and claiming his gay identity. While most of my gay and lesbian friends came out of the closet in their teens, some did not acknowledge their sexuality until they were in the 40s.
But they weren't Chair of the Republican National Commitee.
Mehlman's leadership positions in the GOP came at a time when the party was stepping up its anti-gay activities -- such as the distribution in West Virginia in 2006 of literature linking homosexuality to atheism, or the less-than-subtle, coded language in the party's platform ("Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country..."). Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush's chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.
Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.
"It's a legitimate question and one I understand," Mehlman said. "I can't change the fact that I wasn't in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally." He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: "If they can't offer support, at least offer understanding."
And here is where I am stuck.
Mr. Mehlman says that he understands those of us who can't offer him our support because he has come to terms with his gayness. He admits that even as Chair of the Republican National Committee, he was just following orders when the Republican Right launched attacks on the civil rights of gay people, attempted to turn them into pariahs who were not worthy of being American citizens.
Because that's what we're talking about. The wholescale attempts to deny to gay people their civil rights, even, in some cases, their very right to existence, all happened under the watch of a man who now acknowledges that he is gay.
If he was David Brock, he would not only disavow his past behaviour, but he would leave the party that perpetrated these activities. But Mehlman, in one of those bizarrre turns of phrase, thinks that gay people should join the Republican party because it alone is facing off against Islam--the greatest threat to gay people on the planet (according to Mehlman)?
Excuse me? If you read Harper's, then you have already seen Jeff Sharlet's chilling article about his recent trip to Uganda. You see, the Ugandan anti-gay bill, which would mete out death to "serial homosexuals," is a bill that has been pushed by members of The Family, the organization within the Republican party, well-documented, that pushes an extreme Christian right-wing agenda.
The greatest threat to gays in the world?
Ken. Look in the mirror. Either change the party you're in by fighting the forces of evil within it (and I do call The Family evil deliberately), or take a real stand, denounce your past, those you led, the agenda you were a part of, or leave the party and become an activist like David Brock has.
You want my understanding?
You have to earn it.
You spent a long time earning my contempt.
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still, fanatical moslems are a more immediate danger to gays than republicans so there is a certain logic in his position. if you are planning to live in kandahar rather than san francisco...
My understanding of idiots?? I do not have the time.
The constant denial of human rights for political gain is truly a sad damn day. Yet it continues with no end in sight Lorraine.
I say be true in all actions regardless. Honesty is always the best policy. Everything else it banal drivel. The best thing to do with a paper tiger is to lie about it and make it grown stronger. Then it becomes a true tiger and bites back hard. This man deserves nothing from me but contempt. He has sure earned it.
Really?
I do want to say now that Ken Mehlman can go fuck himself with a rusty chainsaw.
There is nothing "brave" about Roy Cohn Jr. coming out after all of the damage he has done to LBGT America. The question that remians is why he's doing this and why now.
David Frum provided a prequel just the other day
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/08/25/of-thee-i-douche/
Hey Ken, what happened to that male hooker you installed in the White House as fake reporter "Jeff Gannon" (aka. James D. Gukert)?
This story is FAR from over.
Clearly the other Manolo has yet to drop.
You think YOU'RE conflicted about forgiving Mehlman? Try being a former member of a Log Cabin Republican's Steering Committee and having fought both him and the rest of the Republican National Committee about gay rights. Allowing the Religious Right to make policy and the resulting animosity towards gays (fained or not) were two of the reasons I finally left the Republican party and voted as a Democrat for the first time in my life (much to my pinko, leftist, liberal Suzy's delight).
I can certainly understand trying to work within the system to implement change while loudly condemning the current platform (which is WHY I stayed a LC Republican for so long even though I am pretty socially liberal), but actively fighting AGAINST LGBT rights is a whole other thing.
So no. No forgiveness for Kenny till he makes some MAJOR amends. (which would be to STFU about his misguided beliefs regarding Islam and a womans right to choose. = he really is a little fascists - gay or not).
Every religion, at its core, is anti-gay (why I'm not a fan of religion, among other reasons too numerous to get into). The idea is to support and nurture the moderate factions of those faiths which are making an attempt to reconcile ancient (man-made) texts with a more evolved outlook. Islam is a little "behind" but there are positive signs everywhere that men and women of, pardon the pun, good faith are trying to open the umbrella.
So what do we do in good old America? Everything we possibly can to stifle and eliminate the moderates so the radicals can prevail. If, along the way, we can also deflect attention from ourselves for past misrepresentation, hey, that's a twofer!
Good work, Mehlman. And good work, America.
*sarcasm absolutely intended*
He might look to Wendell Potter as an example. The guy didn't just say “wow, I feel bad,” but owned up to the harm that was going on and helped others to see the mechanism in plain ways that had been hard to see.
(I'm bi, folks...so..er..)
So...my expectations of gay people and women are just a smidge higher.
This man does NOT deserve understanding. Any shill for a party that has as a TOP agenda ratification of discrimination of gays is persona non grata in my book. Queer or no...ESPECIALLY queer.
Christ. An American, in this day, this day of even the military being open to open gays...pulling this bullshit is just....inexcusable.
Not everyone can be out. Fine. I'm all for privacy. But you don't have to fucking work AGAINST the rights of people like you.
Second of all, I am totally willing to both understand and forgive him if he does the following:
1. Bankrolls, until completion, the current legal campaign to undo the legislative damage he personally contributed to; or
2. Fully funds a Safe Schools program or something similar in at least five Southern states. I realize this is an arbitrary number, but it will give him a goal. And will buy me some time to tune up the world's smallest violin.
I will also consider forgiveness if he throws his support behind the Park 51 community center.
He wants others to "offer" him support or understanding, I want to know why he doesn't offer me or others support or understanding in return. To me he's just another self centered user and I understand them very well.
r.
-R-
The answer is NOT to leave the party, but to stay and maintain a presence and seek to exert influence from within.
I am a registered republican firmly in favor of gay rights and of gay marriage. Debates with none other than Glenn Greenwald on a message board from a time long ago and a land far away changed my opinion.
Seems to flow from the 14th as currently interpreted as far as I am concerned. Leaving doesn't do diddly. Staying and increasing the visibility within the party makes far more sense.
Sorry, dude... that doesn't work. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt that says "STFU you queer, signed the Religious Right".
Now days the GOP has been completely assimilated by the Borg of the Religious Right and the Me First and Only'er of the far right.
That you can still argue just means that they haven't got to you yet. One of these days a guy that looks like a member of The Family will show up and tells you "resistance is futile"... don't say I didn't warn you!
There's nothing to understand about Ken Mehlman. He's perfectly understood. There is nothing he can say or do that I -- or any other thinking member of the LGBT community -- cares two shits about.
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/08/26/waiting-for-the-other-manolo-to-drop/
The next thing I'd be interested in reading about Ken Mehlman is his obituary.
I'm a hawk. Both fiscally and militarily. Neither party has been much of a hawk. Socially, I hew libertarian. My self interest lies in our economic well being and sense of personal security. The social issues are tangential.
FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!!!!!!
rated.
"I can't change the fact that I wasn't in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally." He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: "If they can't offer support, at least offer understanding."
One thing I wonder about is who Mehlman thinks his audience is. That is, is he asking for understanding in general from everyone, or from his former conservative supporters, or from people who opposed his politics? I think it's possible he's talking to fellow conservatives, in which case his plea makes sense. I suspect that most who support gay rights are not likely to find this compelling, though; his turn-around is ridiculously self-serving (as one of your Big Salon commenters observed). "I did things that hurt some people, but now that I'm one of them, I wish I hadn't." Some pre-schoolers have a more sophisticated set of ethics than this.
Actually there's one. In today's world Kenny Boy is finding it impossible to talk with the young gay guys hewants to fuck. They're all out and have been from the moment they got their first hard-on. They don't understand the closet becuase they've never known it. Their "role model" is Neil Patrick Harris.
Kenny Boy had to do SOMETHING.
My reaction to "The Family," going just on the article I mentioned, is I would suspect a lot more mild than yours.
First of all I have visited a lot of different religious groups, and I have to say that like all groups they can seem strange to an outsider. (I say that even of companies like Disney, for example, that I've worked for, that they can be very "cult-ish" when you are inside them.) When people come together in a group they create their own rituals which don't make sense to everyone and can even seem a bit bizarre. But to make the leap that this group has some cabal-like power doesn't ring at all true to me. I understand from reading it that high-ranked political figures (such as Ed Meese) have had some involvement with them or attended a breakfast but we'd need to know more about the specific context to draw any conclusions about this. Guilt by association went out with McCarthy -- or should have.
If there's a way for you to link me to the Uganda article I'd like to read it, or maybe after a while it will become available online to non-subscribers. But frankly I didn't find Sharlet's article on "The Family" very interesting or insightful reading, so I don't expect much from his Uganda piece.
He's spineless pond scum of the lowest order.
This has been terribly obvious for a long time, but apparently it isn't obvious enough for many people, particularly in the Republican Party. I'd like to see more educational campaigns go in this direction, e.g. that "homophobia is the new gay" or words to that effect, so that the onus is placed on hypocrisy, not on people's in-born nature.
Rated.
Youre "maybe he was about to be outed" is hilarious. HE WAS OUTED YEARS AGO ON CNN BY BILL MAHER!
WHAT DO YOU NEED? FLASH CARDS?
A lifetime in the closet might explain years of privacy and introspection, but it does not in any way excuse active participation and endorsement of abhorrent inhumane antigay policy and practice.
And why is that/ Because you missed that Larry King episode? Because no one who saw it (and millions did) ever mentioned it to you?
"The only reason his sexual orientation means anything is that he has betrayed people with the same orientation. If not for that - and if he hadn't announced it - I wouldn't care."
"I Don't Care" is Heterosexual Privilege's Old Sweet Song. It's fairly easy to translate. You "don't care" because "caring" for you and your kind is equivalent to Fred Phelps. By "not mentioning it" you think you're doing me and mine a Gret Big Fat Favor. Well you're not.
"It's not a matter of me not having gaydar; it's that something like this shouldn't matter in most contexts. "
Of course it should In ALL contexts. I'll supply you with a readig list at the end of this post that will show you why.
"For example, I didn't think of Ellen DeGeneres as gay until she said she was. Even now, when I occasionally see her show intended for mostly hetero housewives, I don't think of her specifically as gay."
That's because no one is supposed to be "specifically gay" in a culture RULED WITH A FUCKING IRON FIST by heterosexuals. That Ellen's charm has triumphed over this is considerably significant. Don't think for a moment that the housewives who tune in every day to her marvelously relaxed entertainment show are unaware of Porta. Moreover Ellen has spoken out on her show whenever the opportunity has arisen -- most strikingly over the muder of Lawrence King.
"Point is, as a gay journalist (which I take to mean that you pretty much exclusively cover gay issues)"
No I don't. Half of my wrting career has been devoted to serious cinema studies.
"you assume everyone thinks like you do. "
Pot Meet Kettle.
"I was formerly a TV engineer, but I didn't always think about chroma phase or luminance levels when I watched a TV show, and I didn't expect others to think of them (or understand what they meant) either."
My life and that of those I love and have loved (75% of my nearest and dearest died in the AIDS epidemic) is not to be reduced to Chroma Key.
And now that list: "The Invention of Heterosexuality" by Jonathan Ned Katz, "Gay New York" by George Cauncey, "Tricks" by Renaud Camus, "Christopehr and His Kind" and "A Single Man" by Christopher Isherwood, "Secret Historian" by Justin Spring, "The Gay Metropolis" by Charles Kaiser, "Straight News" by Edward Alwood, "Contested Closets" by Larry Gross, "Queer in America" by Michelangelo Signorile, and "Open Secret" by me.
I think we share what I call the elevator test. I struggle to be compassionate, as often and to as many as possible. I have not figured out how to suffer fools' posts, but in person I am always looking to be generous. But if I were stuck for hours on an elevator with person X, would I listen, try to reach them, allow latitude, in the confessional privacy of Otis?
Ken meets the criteria. Formally I would write as you have here, or support a post like yours, and do. Hold his white-shoe feet to the fire, as it were. But sitting on that elevator floor, I would try to understand him.
There are some I would treat differently. For some I would muster all I could remember, and my most ferocious rhetoric, and it would be hours of misery for them.
The list shrinks every year. But I still fantasize about me and Kissinger, locked in. I would, with words, dismantle that war criminal, and try my best to make his time with me a glimpse of what he should have had for the last 40 years: penitentiary time.
Ken, not so much. I applaud the keenness of your post. There is an opportunity, and you take it, to hold his public figure to an accounting that includes his redemption. Well done.
Really? Why?
Ken Mehlman is a piece of shit deserving of nothing other than pure unadulterated contempt.