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51 Gay Bashing Speeches at the Republican Convention
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In contrast, during the Democratic National Convention there were 18 supportive references to gay rights and absolutely zero derogatory or bigoted denunciations of homosexuals. (See 18 Gay Speeches at the Democratic Convention, http://www.gaytoday.com/viewpoint/080904vp.asp ) In addition, there were several openly gay speakers at the Democratic Convention, but none at the RNC. The Republican National Convention was a masquerade because it featured only moderate Republican speakers, such as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. Hidden from view, for example, was the anti-gay Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes, who called the Vice President's lesbian daughter a "selfish hedonist" during a radio interview at the convention. Keyes is running against Barack Obama who was the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention. In reality, the official Republican Party Platform is so extreme that it borders on calling for the establishment of a Christian theocracy. The so-called "liberal press" has negligently allowed the Republicans to hide their bigoted agenda and sell themselves as being "compassionate conservatives" who accept "all Americans" into their "big [elephant circus] tent." Not only were there no positive references to gay rights during the Republican National Convention, but the words gay, homosexual or same-sex marriage were never directly uttered. This premeditated refusal by Republicans to refer to gay people by name is an intentional insult according to gay conservative author Andrew Sullivan who supported George W. Bush in 2000. It effectively dehumanizes gay people. But Republicans did not have to use the word gay to bash gays. Instead, they used well known catchphrases that look innocent when printed on paper, but are easily decoded as being anti-gay. Most gay bashing RNC speeches used words like "traditional marriage" or "family values" to make it clear that the speaker was talking about gay people.
Several weeks before the convention, gay California legislators complained when Arnold first used the "girlie-man" line, which was an obvious reference to a Saturday Night Live comedy skit that mocks Arnold's accent. At the time, because it was a joke, I gave Arnold the benefit of the doubt even though he did not apologize. However, the way he repeated the "girlie-men" line in his RNC speech attacked not only women but also many gay men. Gay men, who were effeminate as boys, painfully recall being taunted with gender-based insults by playground bullies. The instant Arnold said "girlie-men," the C-SPAN cameras cut to a clapping Senator Trent Lott, who had previously compared homosexuals to kleptomaniacs but was not denounced by his colleagues until he made a racist comment. The crowd clearly understood that Arnold was a fellow gay basher and they cheered loudly. Watching the misogynistic and anti-gay Republican mob cheering Arnold, made me understand why the Log Cabin Republicans were virtually locked out of the convention. (Jeremy Quittner of the The Advocate identified 50 known gay delegates or 2 percent of the 2,508 total) I do appreciate their efforts to change the Republican Party from the inside, despite how crazy it seems. To me it seems crazy as Christians trying to convert Muslims from inside their mosques. Al Franken wrapped up his Monday radio show on the topic of gay Republicans. His guest was David Catania, a gay Republican leader whose delegate credentials for the RNC were revoked after he split with the party on the question of same-sex marriage. Catania is a thirty-six year old Washington, D.C. city council member. (See http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/CATANIA/home/default.asp ) The Al Franken Show, http://www.alfrankenshow.com with hosts Al Franken and Katherine Lanpher, was broadcast live from the Republican National Convention to counter the numerous rightwing radio talk shows. (See The O'Franken Factor, http://www.gaytoday.com/viewpoint/052404vp.asp and note that the show's name and website address has been changed. Streaming audio of the show is available over the Internet if you are not near a radio or satellite receiver. A video feed debuted September 7th on the Sundance channel.) Al Franken sarcastically asked David Catania why he was doing this interview over the telephone instead of at the convention. Catania explained that he had been working for "a place at the Republican table" by raising more money that any other young Republican had done. But when President Bush endorsed writing discrimination into the Constitution with the Federal Marriage Amendment, he became unwilling to sign the loyalty oath required to attend the Republican National Convention. He said he refused to sign so that he would be free to continue fighting for gay rights in the Republican Party. As I have mentioned before, Al Franken is not an expert on gay issues, but he is a blatant heterosexual card-carrying liberal who is gay friendly. While interviewing Catania, Franken seemed incredulous that any gay person would so masochistically choose to be a Republican. Franken even tried to save Catania by inviting him to become a Democrat. Franken told him about all of the Democrats who share Catania's objection to President Bush's borrow and spend big government policies. Catania politely declined Franken's offer and explained that he thought it was important for gay people to have representation in both political parties so that neither party could take gay people for granted.
Al Franken opened his Thursday morning show with the observation that Mary Cheney was conspicuously missing from the stage when the Vice President proudly showed off the rest of his family. Franken could not believe the "family values" Republicans would be so cruel. Similar to the Vice President, President George W. Bush has also condescendingly conceded "legal relationships." But this is very shallow because gay people already have a right to establish "legal relationships." And the Republican Party Platform wants to outlaw both gay marriages and civil unions, which would prevent companies from entering a "legal relationship" to provide employees with domestic partner benefits. Most large companies provide these benefits to be competitive and because it is good for business. Who says that Republicans always suck up to big business? I guess bashing homosexuals is a higher priority for Republicans than their goal of "creating a healthy climate for business." In 2000, Bush gave gay Republicans a few crumbs to get elected. According to David Catania, speaking on Al Franken's radio show, Bush's henchmen agreed to let openly gay Congressman Jim Kolbe speak at the convention and agreed to keep President Clinton's executive order against discrimination based on sexual orientation. As a result, Bush received one million votes from gay people, which he will probably not get in 2004. Consequently, Bush will most likely rescind his promise. A recent Bush appointee has already erased all mention of this non-discrimination policy from the government's personnel website. This is a policy that gay rights pioneer Franklin Kameny has fought to get and keep for over four decades. The president's advisors have coldly calculated that they can afford to lose a million votes by openly bashing gay people in order to pick up 4 million votes from evangelicals who did not vote in the last election. To lure these voters to the polls, Republicans have placed anti-gay marriage initiatives on many state ballots. Despite Catania's logical rationalizations for being a gay Republican, Al Franken still could not understand why he was a Republican. Catania conceded that only a few gay Republicans would vote for George W. Bush this time around. He lamented that the Republican Party leadership had been taken over by "white Christian southerners." He said that Bush's four year long strategy of bashing gays in order to get reelected will have a 40 year long effect with gay voters similar to what effect Senator Barry Goldwater's refusal to support the 1964 Civil Rights Act had with blacks. He thinks the gay vote will be driven exclusively to the Democratic Party just as the black vote was. This is bad because it allows both parties to take gays and blacks for granted. As expected, Al Franken reverted to his professional comedian role and challenged the Republicans to "protect marriage" with a "three strikes law." If you get married and divorced three times, then you will not be allowed to marry again. Al Franken gleefully noted that Rush Limbaugh had already struck out. David Catania did not laugh at Franken's joke. Apparently, even gay Republicans have no sense of humor. As a side note, I just finished watching the DVD set of Al Franken's LateLine TV show. Gay rights issues were positively portrayed throughout the 19 half hour shows. Even though Franken filmed these shows during the Clinton impeachment of 1998 to 1999, his political humor was ahead of its time and it is still fresh today. The show got cancelled much too soon. Anyways, here is my exclusive summary of gay bashing speeches at the Republican National Convention. Note that you will not find this anywhere else because mainstream reporters are not actually listening to the convention speeches. Instead, they are depending on official transcripts, which often differ significantly from what is said on the stage. In general, virtually all of the Republican speakers at the convention ended their speeches by saying "God Bless America." In addition, there were 51 gay bashing references in the RNC speeches. As I mentioned earlier, the Republicans scheduled one odd, early morning session on Monday. But for the rest of the week, the convention was scheduled to run only from about 7 to 11 PM eastern time (4 to 8 PM west coast time). In contrast, the Democratic National Convention ran much longer. According to Newsweek magazine, Bush's henchman Karl Rove intentionally hid the Republican Party Platform in order to deceive moderate voters. The Monday, August 30, 2004 morning session, where the Platform was formally adopted, was also well hidden. Most voters were at work during this time. In addition, the start time was not announced in any TV guide or on the official GOP web site until Monday morning, so voters could not even set their VCR timer to record it. A few people with Tivo-like digital video recorders might have caught it.
This was aptly followed by Republican Governor Linda Lingle of Hawaii. It was the legalization of gay marriage by a Hawaii court in 1993 that led to the 1996 Federal Defense of Marriage Act being passed and the Hawaii Constitution being amended to forbid gay marriages. Governor Lingle is responsible for perpetuating this anti-gay bigotry and she got to speak four more times at the convention. It sounded just like a 1970 radical gay rights meeting, when the Republican rules committee announced that each delegation was required to send one man and one woman to the subcommittee meetings. Maybe it is a good sign that the Republicans have caught up to where the Democrats were thirty years ago in getting women involved. But it really shows that Republicans are obsessed with categorizing all humans as being either male or female. This type of "quota based" sexism fits perfectly with their homophobic and heterosexist ideology. How would an intersex person, who is neither male nor female, get assigned to a Republican committee? The Party chairman made it clear with a couple of quick parliamentary maneuvers and a few voice votes that no unexpected issues could be raised from the floor. The few surviving Log Cabin Republican delegates would not be allowed to start a floor fight over the "Unity Plank" that had been previously voted down by the Platform Committee. In effect, the Platform committee had declared that it was unacceptable for Republicans to disagree about gay rights as Vice President Cheney had done the day before. During breaks, fake TV reporters, hired by the Republicans, were roaming around "interviewing" people on Republican issues. Peter Jennings of ABC News suggested that the Republicans were doing this to prepare delegates for when the real TV reporters approached them. I assume party bosses also used this to detect and throw out people that were opposing the party line. It reminded me of the old methods of communist dictators. The gayest event occurred 36 minutes into the convention when a group of unidentified dancers started singing a melody of Broadway show tunes, including "I like New York in June." Yes, June in New York is when the annual gay pride parade honors Stonewall era pioneers. It was great to see gay entertainers slip old fashioned subversive gay subtext into the Republican convention. Ironically, the gay Broadway show tunes were used to introduce the gayest former Mayor of New York City Ed Koch. Maybe this was a concession to the Log Cabin Republicans. Don't all gay Republicans like show tunes and closeted mayors? Topping this, Mayor Koch specifically bragged about being a "Democrat from Greenwich Village." Years ago, this would have been the same as saying, "I'm gay." Koch said he was at the Republican Convention "to convert Republicans to be Democrats for the next election," but for this election he was supporting President Bush. Mike Roger's http://www.blogactive.com denounced Koch for being gay and hypocritically supporting a party that is actively working against gay people. The 15-year old debate about the ethics of outing was all the mainstream press could talk about, despite the fact that both a congressman and the N.J. Governor were exposed as having conflicts of interest because of their secret gay life. Soon after Koch's speech there was a series of rapid fire, thirty-second to one-minute speeches given by the Republican candidates for Congress. Here is a summary of the House candidates who bashed gays in their speech: Bob Beauprez of Colorado called for upholding "mainstream values," but not for gay people.
Bev Kilmer of Florida called for "traditional moral values." She apparently rejects the traditional moral values of homosexual sodomy. Clinton LeSueur of Mississippi was one of the few black people at the convention. But like most black Republicans, he was viciously homophobic. He demanded that all Americans must "believe in God, Christianity and Jesus Christ" and we must "govern the nation with God and the Bible." The Bible also says that gay people shall be put to death. Becky Armendariz of Texas bragged about being a Hispanic veteran who wants to "conserve our conservative values," presumably including the value of discriminating against gay people in order to get elected. Tim Escobar of California announced that he was from the "newly liberated state of California." This was an apparent reference to the court decision that nullified the recent San Francisco gay marriages. He also called for "traditional marriage," which is a political catchphrase that allows Republicans to gay bash without having to say the words gay, homosexual or same-sex marriage. Geoff Davis of Kentucky supported "conservative principles and values." Apparently, gay people should not be allowed in the Republican Party. Corey Hoze of Wisconsin was another homophobic black man calling for "traditional marriage and protection of the unborn." Apparently, Republicans think fetuses have more rights than gay people do. It is sad to see so many conservative Christian fundamentalist black people express envy over the success of gays and Hispanics. I think they view these other minority groups as being a threat to the rights black people have gotten over the last forty years. Personally, I think this is very short sighted. To stop the tyranny of the majority, all minority groups have to work together. During the Monday morning session there were very few delegates in the hall, but there were many young males standing in the Texas Delegation area who were identically dressed in blue denim shirts, white chinos, cowboy boots, and Stetson hats. Not only did they look like The Village People, but they literally looked like they were posing for a gay porno publicity picture. I swear that I recognized a famous gay hustler and porno star. I wonder who these men really were and why they were there. Virtually all of the Texas delegates at the primetime evening session looked like shriveled up old white folk. Maybe these studs were paid seat holders, hired from a local New York modeling agency, and cast to make the Texas delegation look good. The next portion of the Monday morning session formalized the bigoted anti-gay Republican Party Platform and rules. Ed Gillespie marveled at the fact that there were no contested delegates. He praised the party bosses for "choosing delegates carefully." Obviously, forcing delegates to sign a loyalty oath had worked. Any surviving Log Cabin Republican delegates were not to be seen or heard. Senator Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader from Tennessee, was in charge of drafting the Platform. He complimented the 110 delegates who had worked on it for expressing "principles that were timeless and universal." He said we all have "pride in the platform" and it was written with "respect and civility." I guess he means that gay bashing is not disrespectful because it is timeless and universal. The co-chair for the Platform, Rep. Melissa Hart of Pennsylvania said it represented the best of "compassionate conservatism." She called for "freedom and opportunity for all Americans," except for gay people. The Party Platform speeches were followed by a partial roll call vote of the states that was suspended after Louisiana voted. Party leaders did this so that the final vote to nominate George Bush would occur during primetime television on Wednesday night and be done by the battleground states. As is traditional in roll call votes, most states had a delegate read a statement about how great their state is and how much they love George W. Bush. But unlike at the Democratic Convention, there were no political statements, except to bash gay people. Before Arkansas cast their votes, a delegate talked about "Arkansas values" that do not include gay people. A California delegate called for "diversity," but they did not include gay people. The Governor of Hawaii Linda Lingle appeared yet again and carefully parsed her words to call for "cultural diversity." She must think the "cultural" adjective cleverly excludes gay people. The barest moment occurred when the C-SPAN cameras broadcast one of the fake TV reporters conducting a fake interview with an actual black immigrant delegate. He was loudly complaining about how homosexual secularists were evil, but then he belatedly added that Republicans must show compassion. I am guessing that a party boss yelled into his earphone and demanded he add a "compassionate conservatism" caveat. The last part of the morning session was filled with minute long speeches by Republican Senate candidates. Once again, nobody uttered the words gay or homosexual, but several speakers bashed gay people: George Allen of Virginia said we need "judges that apply the law" against gay people. Marvin Scott, a college professor from Indiana, who happens to be black, credited the Republicans for passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As the "old Al Franken" character might say, "Oy, oy, oy!" Talk about rewriting history! This falsehood was repeated by other black speakers at the convention. Scott called for "traditional values," which is a popular catchphrase used by anti-gay organizations. Next, a mysterious black male speaker who was not identified by either C-SPAN or the official GOP schedule, railed on about "faith and values" and the evils of homosexuality. I can not find any record of his speech in any official transcript. Sadly, most black Republicans appear to be homophobic Christian fundamentalists. Scientific lab studies have shown that this type of homophobic aggression is often a result of self-described heterosexual men suppressing the fact that they are sexually aroused by homosexual sex. In addition, many black men seem to be angry and envious of gay men for "hijacking" the civil rights movement. Many blacks mistakenly equate civil rights with only black rights. Susan Davis, a proud "Irish-American" praised the "good party platform" that called for discrimination against gay people but not Irish Catholics or Protestants.
After listening to the first four hours of gay bashing, it was difficult to watch the rest of the convention. Since I did not have a strong anti-psychotic drug available, I thought I was suffering from a severe paranoid hallucination where I saw America as being an oppressive Christian theocracy that punished homosexuality with the death penalty. But wait! According to the definitions in the psychiatrists' diagnostics manual, I did not have a psychotic hallucination because it was not bizarre and it was within the realm of reasonable possibilities. Despite my immense psychological pain, I resisted being an Arnold Schwarzenegger "girlie-man" and watched the entire Republican National Convention. Unlike at the Democratic convention, no speaker at the Republican convention openly declared they were gay. However, the Rep. Heather Wilson from New Mexico set off my gaydar. She is an Air Force Academy graduate, with a dyke military style haircut. She stuck out as masculine and non-subservient to men, which is unlike the typical Republican female delegate whose hairdo and makeup are clearly aimed at serving men. The Monday evening primetime session was devoted to disingenuously justifying the war in Iraq with the 9/11 terrorist attack. Heterosexual widows of 9/11 victims spoke to honor their husbands. Their history excluded the gay heroes of 9/11. Despite the fact FOX News had promised to provide equal coverage, they televised in primetime the Republican 9/11 victims even though they did not televise similar speeches by 9/11 victims at the Democratic Convention. (Source: Media Matters) Michael Moore, who is the director of the terrific anti-Bush propaganda movie Fahrenheit 9/11, was a guest in the USA Today press box during Senator John McCain's speech. The crowd started loudly booing Moore after McCain called him a "disingenuous filmmaker." This unscripted moment must have been considered too disruptive by the party bosses, because the party floor leaders started up a "four more years" chant to drown out the booing. Moore gleefully smiled and raised two fingers at the C-SPAN cameras to sign "two more months." I noticed that every TV news channel was showing Moore's face while he was being booed. In an interview afterwards with Chris Matthews, McCain admitted that he had not seen Moore's movie and he could not give an example of anything false in the movie. Because of this, I have lost all respect for John McCain. He is shamelessly sucking up to Bush only to further his own political career. Rudy Giuliani, the Mayor of New York City during the 9/11 tragedy, was supposed to be one of the moderate Republican speakers. Similar to McCain, Giuliani also shamelessly sucked up to the rightwing. Giuliani told a homophobic story about a beefy ground zero construction worker who had "bear hugged" President Bush because Bush had agreed with him that America should fuck the terrorists in the ass. The C-SPAN cameras immediately cut to Vice President Dick Cheney, who had previously bragged about how good it made him feel saying "go fuck yourself" to a U.S. Senator. Cheney stood and vigorously applauded Giuliani's "joke" about sodomizing our enemy, which our military literally did to humiliate Abu Ghraib prisoners in Iraq. I guess these are the type of family values that Republicans want to uphold. On Tuesday night, Senator Elizabeth Dole from North Carolina, and the wife of failed presidential candidate Bob Dole, gave an overtly religious and anti-gay speech. She sarcastically said Republicans did not invent marriages between one man and one woman, but they will defend it. She equated her religious values with virtue and the truth. She asserted that Americans have only freedom of religion and not freedom from religion. Fortunately for me, this confirmed that my psychotic paranoid hallucination of a Christian theocracy in America was not really a hallucination. The Gods must be crazy and not me. Also speaking on Tuesday night was the 2003 Miss America Erika Harold. She became famous for having lied to the Miss America organization about her real plans to promote a political agenda of abstinence until marriage. In effect, she is telling gay children that they can never have sex because the Republican Platform says gay people will never be allowed to marry. Not only is this position unreasonable, but Catholic priests have already proven that lifelong celibacy rarely works. Harold also touted Bush's "faith based initiative," which is giving taxpayer's money to religious organizations that discriminate against gay people. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas called for honoring the "dignity and equality of every person" except for gay people. He was a sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment. Brownback bragged about the Republicans' global AIDS effort without mentioning how they are diverting our tax dollars to Christian missionary organizations that are using it to convert Muslims to Christianity. He repeated the Republican spin that domestic AIDS spending is at "record levels." He did not mention that most of this spending is on basic research that has nothing to do with helping U.S. citizens with AIDS. Nor did he mention that AIDS prevention programs are being shut down to fund abstinence until marriage programs, which by definition exclude the gay men who constitute the majority of U.S. HIV cases. The weekend before the convention, Mort Kondracke, a conservative FOX News host, told his conservative co-host Fred Barnes that "President Bush's compassionate conservatism is a fraud." Specifically, he criticized the President's opposition to stem cell medical research because his wife suffers from Parkinson's disease. A day later I heard a Republican spokesperson angrily denounce the Democrats for using stem cell research as a "wedge issue" to divide Republicans. In response, the Republican primetime speeches were laced with lies about how President Bush was the first president to fund stem cell research. Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D. (he bragged about having a medical degree in his speech) joined with several other speakers to perpetuate the lie that President Bush supports stem cell research. In fact, Bush instituted a ban on stem cell research. He proudly showed the Medicare Prescription Discount Card. He did not mention that even with this card, drug prices have gone up, which has wiped out any savings the card provided. People with AIDS are acutely aware of this problem. Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele offensively referred to Barack Obama's outstanding speech at the Democratic Convention. Like other black Republican speakers, he tried to rewrite history by blaming Democrats for blocking the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In fact, it was Republicans and few southern Democrats who had blocked it. Today, southern Democrats have all converted to being bigoted Republicans, with the exception of the Democratic Senator Zell Miller of Georgia who spoke on Wednesday night in primetime to support the reelection of George W. Bush. First lady Laura Bush wrapped up Tuesday night right after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's misogynistic "girlie men" comment. While delegates were holding up "W stands for women" signs, Laura Bush bragged about how women now have the right to vote in Iraq. She failed to mention that we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and so far 1,000 soldiers have died to give Iraq women this right. She also falsely linked all of this to 9/11 just like the other Republican speakers did. Christian-Republican "feminists" are hypocrites when they claim to have equal rights to men. Fundamentalist preachers regularly interpret the Bible as requiring women be subservient to their husbands. Laura Bush is hypocritical to use the Bible to deny gay people equal marriage rights while she ignores the biblical laws that subjugate women. Discrimination against homosexuals is just a part of the sexism and gender oppression that Christian-Republicans endorse. But the ultimate in Christian hypocrisy was seen during the Tuesday night benediction. During all of the Christian led benedictions, every delegate could be seen respectfully standing or praying. But on Tuesday night, the benediction was led by a Jewish woman who was introduced as being a survivor of a "Nazi concentration camp." The C-SPAN cameras panned across the auditorium. Thousands of people could be seen milling about and talking, and I could only see three or four people praying. The Republicans' claim of supporting "Judeo-Christian" values is very shallow. Of course, this strange Republican alliance between fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews has been driven by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell solely for political gain. FOX News host Brit Hume mocked the Jewish groups who had complained that the podium was intentionally built in the shape of a Christian cross. Hume noted that Republicans were skilled at "stage craft." And this eerily rhymes with witchcraft. Clearly, Jews and gays are not welcomed in the Republican Party's "big tent." The failed presidential candidate and anti-gay conservative TV pundit Pat Buchanan correctly predicted that the Republicans would use Wednesday night to feed "red meat" to their base supporters. Amazingly, the Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle appeared on stage for the fourth time to remind people that she "saved" Hawaii from the fate of the Roman Empire. Al Franken even got to ask Pat Buchanan if he had ever had a homoerotic dream. Buchanan said "his DNA" made him "immune to that." Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania who had previously compared homosexual sodomy to bestiality and who worries that men will be able to marry dogs if gay marriage is legalized, toned down his convention speech but explicitly denounced "leftwing judges" for redefining marriage as something other than "one man and one woman." (Note: Google "santorum" and the first hit now links to Dan Savage's Google bomb http://www.spreadingsantorum.com ) Santorum (the Senator and not the mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes a byproduct of anal sex) did not have to mention man dog sex because a "joke" video starring Bush's political henchmen Karl Rove and Andy Card did it for him. In the video, Rove obsessed over getting the "dog vote" and he enlisted the President's dog Barney to debate Kerry's dog "FiFi," which they cast as a stereotypically gay French toy poodle. "FiFi" was another attempt by Republicans to demean John Kerry by feminizing him. Vice President Dick Cheney in his acceptance speech continued this line of attack by criticizing Kerry's desire to conduct a "more sensitive" war in Iraq. Of course, Cheney neglected to mention how many times the Bush administration officials had also said they wanted to conduct the war "sensitively." The fact that Republicans see feminization as being a weapon is a good indication of how they really view women. Republicans clearly see women as being inferior to "real men." I am sure some of this is rooted in George W. Bush's lack of confidence with his own masculinity. He painfully remembers how his father was called a wimp and had to pick a fight with CBS News anchor Dan Rather in order to look tough. The Wednesday night roll call vote of the states finished up with the battleground states. A state of New Jersey delegate introduced a former Republican governor and they made an oblique reference to the scandal over the current gay Democratic governor by accusing Democrats of "running away from office instead of running for office." The Oregon delegate chairman Kevin Mannix, who is also supporting the Oregon Constitutional Amendment 36 to ban gay marriages, praised the President's "Healthy Forests Initiative." Just before the roll call vote, Interior Secretary Gale Norton was shown in Bend, Oregon looking at the aftermath of a forest fire that many locals believe Bush intentionally set for political reasons. Since I live adjacent to the Oregon State University research forest, it was maddening to hear Norton outright lie that the "Healthy Forest Initiative" was meant to "preserve the forest by thinning" it out. This sounds innocuous but professional forest scientists openly laugh at Bush's program because they know it is really a Republican gift to timber companies. Bush's "environmentalism" program is a scam to enrich corporations. I was surprised that in the tribute to President Ronald Reagan, Michael Reagan did not do any gay bashing. Maybe he is wiser than I think. Of course, Reagan didn't need to gay bash because he was followed by the Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney who is sponsoring an amendment to their state constitution to overturn a court decision that legalized gay marriages. Romney linked terrorism to gay marriage by warning that "American values are under attack." He also mouthed the Republican spin that calls for "tolerance and respect for all God's children," except for gay people because "marriage is between one man and one woman." Vice President Dick Cheney wrapped up Wednesday night. As mentioned before, he tried to feminize John Kerry by calling him "sensitive." This is fundamentally misogynistic to cite feminine qualities as being a reason that John Kerry is unfit to be president. Beside the fact that Bush administration officials have also called for waging a "sensitive" war, I think the world would be more peaceful if all world leaders had the feminine qualities of cooperation and sensitivity. Cheney largely avoided the gay marriage issue, but indirectly addressed it with the phrase "even in Massachusetts." The C-SPAN cameras simultaneously cut to an applauding Alan Keyes, who earlier in the week told a reporter that Cheney's lesbian daughter was a "selfish hedonist." At the end of Cheney's acceptance speech, Cheney's family joined him on the stage. Conspicuously missing was his lesbian daughter Mary. I find it despicable that the Republicans hate gay people so much that they would not allow Cheney's lesbian daughter to appear on the stage with him. What type of "family values" does this represent? Of course, the last night of the convention, on Thursday, was set up to focus on the President's acceptance speech and be an appeal to moderate swing voters, including undecided women. Therefore the oratory was highly sanitized and there was very little "red meat" or gay bashing to be heard. The Republicans' skill at "stage craft" was used to build a theatre-in-the-round stage for the President's acceptance speech. President Bush must be confident that it was safe to expose his backside to his own party members. Of course, they were all prescreened and physically searched by Secret Service agents. And he didn't have to worry about picking up a bar of soap. During a very long acceptance speech than ran over the one hour of network TV time allotted to the Democrats, Bush devoted an entire portion of it to gay bashing. He declared that marriage was between "one man and one woman" and said he supported the "protection of marriage against activist judges." He also criticized John Kerry for voting against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and for "not having conservative values." I hope the majority will understand how this jeopardizes heterosexual rights. In several states, similar laws against homosexuals have been cited by judges as the legal precedent to uphold laws against popular heterosexual lifestyles. Do not believe those who say this could never happen in America. The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly protect any heterosexual lifestyle. Many voters do not know that only several decades ago, common heterosexual behaviors such as cohabitation (i.e. living together) and fornication (i.e. premarital sex) were illegal nationwide. Some states also outlawed divorce, ecclesiastical bigamy (i.e. remarriage after death of spouse) and condom education. These archaic blue laws were largely eliminated by so-called liberal "activist judges" without direct voter approval. They could be easily reinstated by the conservative "activist judges" who are being appointed by Christian-Republicans, such as President Bush, and who were promised in his acceptance speech. A majority of heterosexuals have engaged in premarital sex or divorce. It is hypocritical to permit such behaviors while amending the constitution with religious prohibitions against homosexual marriages. Christian-Republicans want to outlaw all sex outside of different-sex marriages. Banning same-sex marriages will only help them achieve their theocratic agenda. To preserve sexual freedoms, George W. Bush mush be stopped. |
The Republican National Convention included more than 50 gay bashing references 
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once again used the term "girlie-men" 
When Dick Cheney accepted the GOP's re-nomination for vice president, his lesbian daughter was nowhere to be seen on stage 
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed
Gillespie 
Rodney Alexander, a GOP candidate for a House seat in Louisiana, said it's possible to become 'ex-gay' 
Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle introduced a woman who runs an anti-gay ministry