Via the
Huffingtonpost, there's
this from Atlantic.com:
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.
There's a lot in this article, but this part is kinda, you know, funny:
Privately, in off-the-record conversations with this reporter over the years, Mehlman voiced support for civil unions and told of how, in private discussions with senior Republican officials, he beat back efforts to attack same-sex marriage. He insisted, too, that President Bush "was no homophobe." He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called "the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now."
Really? He
wondered about that? Perhaps the answer (or ONE answer) is found in the very next paragraph:
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.
As I said. Kinda funny he wondered about why gay voters never formed common cause with the part of the religious right.
3 comments:
This is a non-issue.
This same thing was tried during debates using Chaney's daughter and it had no traction.
Try something else.
I remember Howard Dean would not appear with Ken Mehlman on any talkshow to debate.
Howard Dean must be a homophobe.
Or a coward who hated to be called on his BS.
I disagree Pgh_Knight. Democrats should shout it from the rooftops and make it an election issue.
PK, what is a non-issue? That a former high level official in the Republican party has come out as gay. That while Ken Mehlman was a high level Republican official, the party was actively campaigning to deny homosexuals the ability to marry, and it was advocating that gay people should not serve in the military or be teachers.
Mary Cheney has been discussed in the past; I think most Democratic politicians have been content to merely mention here as a way of drawing attention to Republican hypocrisy on the subject (my example would be what John Edwards said in his debate with Dick Cheney).
Perhaps it is a non-issue, however it seemed like it was Republican and conservative groups who were screaming about the federal trial deciding whether Proposition 8 in California was unconstitutional. Screams that this would open the door to polygamy and marriages between people and animals.
There is still not a national law regarding same sex marriage, so I believe it is still an issue.
HTTT: as usual, a non sequitur that is incredibly silly.
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