The Gay Old Party

Frank Rich explores the homophobic hypocrisy of the Republican Party...

If anything good has come out of the Foley scandal, it is surely this: The revelation that the political party fond of demonizing homosexuals each election year is as well-stocked with trusted and accomplished gay leaders as virtually every other power center in America...

...The split between the Republicans’ outward homophobia and inner gayness isn’t just hypocrisy; it’s pathology. Take the bizarre case of Karl Rove. Every one of his Bush campaigns has been marked by a dirty dealing of the gay card, dating back to the lesbian whispers that pursued Ann Richards when Mr. Bush ousted her as Texas governor in 1994. Yet we now learn from “The Architect,” the recent book by the Texas journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater, that Mr. Rove’s own (and beloved) adoptive father, Louis Rove, was openly gay in the years before his death in 2004. This will be a future case study for psychiatric clinicians as well as historians...

I don't think it's as complicated as Rich makes it sound. The Republicans wanted to win elections. Their actual legislative records are abysmal. So they stoke the fires of the so-called 'culture war' by demonizing Janet Jackson's tit and then dig deeper by riling up the religious right with fears of a gay apocalypse and mandatory abortions for all. Gays make a convenient boogeyman for the right.

And make no mistake, they will continue to.

Case in point... Mitt Romney, the conservative governor of Massachusetts. With George 'macaca' Allen's presidential prospects gone, he is the 2008 candidate of choice for the religious right. To lay the groundwork for this, he is running around his own state and demonizing its legalization of gay marriage as something that will destroy families and hurt children. While people like Rich want to pretend that the GOP's gay problem is coming to a close, expect people like Romney to be rewarded for their bigotry come primary season.