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Saturday, September 01, 2007

SOMEONE had to do it
Posted by Jill | 8:08 AM
Yesterday morning, as I was listening (yes, without Morning Sedition, the pickin's are pretty lean) to Mark Riley and Richard Bey sub for WWRL's awful morning team that I won't even pollute this blog with their names, and they flogged the Larry Craig business to death with one of Bey's song parodies, it occurred to me that I ought to make an MP3 of the song "If You Were Gay" from Avenue Q and post it. I didn't have time to do it, but Michael Jensen at After Elton found that someone had done even better:





(NOTE: If you're in the New York area, or if you're coming to New York, don't miss Avenue Q. Tickets are as low as $46 for balcony seats where you can see just fine.)

I'm highly conflicted about the relentless piling on regarding Larry Craig's fall. On the one hand, I have nothing but contempt for a closeted gay man who feels that he has the right to work to legislate the entire country into a place that feeds his denial. People have died because of men like Larry Craig -- so frightened of himself that he's been willing to throw red meat at homophobes. In a very real sense, Matthew Shepard died because of things Larry Craig did. That the closet is important enough to these guys that they are willing to sacrifice any number of out gay Americans is reprehensible. It's tempting to say that he deserves anything that happens to him. And certainly some of the satire coming out of this is clever.

But what are we going to say if, after seeing not just his career, but the entire wall of lies he's built to hide from himself, crumble into nothingness, and he's forced to face himself, he can't deal with it and (God forbid) takes his own life? What happens to the jokes then? Are they still funny? When does Schadenfreude run its course? Admit it -- don't you feel a bit skeevey listening to the audio of Craig's arrest interview? Don't you feel just a wee bit that it's really not necessary for us to hear this?

It should be noted that it isn't the gay community, nor is it Godless Heathen Liberals™ clamoring for Craig to step down (despite the insane ravings of lunatics like this one, claiming that liberals are the real homophobes). Funny how David Vitter violating the "sanctity" of his own marriage by patronizing prostitutes doesn't warrant ostracism by his own party, but Larry Craig looking for sex from consenting adult males does. And Craig must be wondering why, after having been such a good soldier for the Christofascist Zombie Brigade™ for so long, his beloved party is dropping him like a hot potato. Perhaps it's because the CZB's morality is so characteristic of the movement's "clean slate" Christianity, in which the only thing you need do for salvation is believe a story -- unless you dare to go places where mainstream CZB'ers don't dare to tread.

Glenn Greenwald explains in a post you must read:


The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation. Hence we have scads of people sitting around opposing same-sex marriage because of their professed belief in "Traditional Marriage" while their "third husbands" and multiple step-children and live-in girlfriends sit next to them on the couch.

They're all willing to cheer on the "rules of traditional marriage" which do not impose on them in any way (marriage must have a man and a woman -- no problem there). But no "Family Values" politician could possibly survive politically by seeking to enshrine with the force of law all of the other equally important prongs of "Traditional Marriage" (all of that dreary, outdated "until death do us part" business which would deny the "right" for Values Voters to dump their wives and move on to the "next wife" when the mood strikes, or remain shacked up with their various girlfriends and the like).


In an ideal world, Larry Craig would have his Lee Atwater Moment, he'd apologize profusely to the gay community and spend the rest of his life as an out and proud gay activist, atoning for being so instrumental in the Republicans' campaign of gay persecution. I'll bet he'd be happier than he's been. But that's assuming that the real, flesh-and-blood people who have been hurt by the policies he's so tirelessly advocated for so long would have him; and who could blame them if they won't?

But politics is a strange and corrupting game, and fundamentalist Christianity and even more strange and corrupting game. In the real world, Larry Craig is more likely to at worst be a "horrifying and tragic" footnote on the evening news someday, or if he does come out, spend his life like Jim McGreevey, painting himself as a victim.

If anything good comes out of all this, one would hope that this detonation of the Republican closet door by Larry Craig, Bob Allen, Mark Foley, and others, finally puts an end to the Politics of Sexual Restraint But Only For Others. However, this doesn't seem likely, given the call by the so-called Idaho Values Alliance to purge the Republican Party of gays:
One larger issue must be addressed. The Republican Party platform clearly rejects the agenda of homosexual activists. The Party, in the wake of the Mark Foley incident in particular, can no longer straddle the fence on the issue of homosexual behavior. Even setting Senator Craig’s situation aside, the Party should regard participation in the self-destructive homosexual lifestyle as incompatible with public service on behalf of the GOP.


Still, one can hope. And it's not as if this latest example of Republican sexual hypocrisy (and not it seems that an organizer of an event for Saint Rudy of 9/11 in -- where else -- Florida -- is stepping down "amid revelations of his arrests for allegedly extorting an FSU student in a sex case and his conviction for dealing in stolen state computers.") gives the Republican presidential candidates no target of fear and loathing on which to base their campaign. There's always immigrants.

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