YAARCO: Yet another anti-gay Republican comes out
Posted By Trey on August 26, 2010
Really, there should be a regular feature in a magazine: “Another anti-gay Republican comes out as “anti-himself”" Sigh. So many Republicans who have done a lot of damage to the lives of so many gay men and lesbians later come out.
Mehlman is the latest if you haven’t heard already.
Who’s Ken Mehlman? Well, he was probably the worst of the many Republicans who came out after doing so much damage. He was the campaign chairman for Bush during 2004. Don’t remember 2004? That’s the year the Bush campaign used gay-baiting and fear-mongering to win an election. That’s the year that 11 state amendments passed to ban marriage equality. I remember the year really well. I remember the gay-baiting and the fear mongering. I remember the hateful rhetoric and loss of rights. It was a very angry and depressing year politically.
Bush was the client, Rove the architect, and Mehlman the contractor and builder of that hateful campaign.
The Christian in me wants so hard to forgive him. I understand the pain and struggle it is to come out, especially in his generation. I deeply understand how everything around you, every thing you hear can make you descend into a pit of self-hating. What I don’t understand is taking that self-hate and using it to oppress others like you. Joe, My God has a long ‘flashback’ of many of the egregious attacks he made from 2004 to 2006.
I’ll forgive him, not that it’s really my place to. That’s between him and God. But if he wants my support, or for me to listen to him, he’s has a lot of reconciliation to do, about 8 years of really really hard work to right the wrongs against the community of his peers.
In future years, we are going to look back and realize it was the closeted politicians and political activists who did some of the worst damage to our equality. It’s sad.




