Back in the day, the gay-baiting experts were Republicans running nasty campaigns against “bachelors” or other whisper campaign words. But as “gay” becomes more acceptable, it appears that more and more, the gay-baiting comes from the Left, aimed at anti-gay politicians on the Right.
Today’s example: Can someone explain to me how this paragraph from an otherwise excellent piece by Frank Rich this weekend wasn’t repeatedly gay-baiting Sen. Lindsey Graham? Rich writes:
In his ’94 Congressional campaign in South Carolina, Graham made a big deal of promising to enact term limits. At the Clinton impeachment, he served as a manager of the prosecution. That was then, and this is now. Graham hasn’t even term-limited himself — an action he could have taken at any time unilaterally — and his pronouncements on marital morality (unencumbered by any marital attachments of his own) are a study in relativism. On “Meet the Press,” he granted absolution to his ’94 classmate Sanford, now his state’s governor, for abusing his office with his taxpayer-financed extramarital “trade mission” to Argentina. “I think the people of South Carolina will give him a second chance,” he said, as long as “Jenny and Mark can get back together.” Maybe Graham judges the Sanfords by a more empathetic standard than the Clintons because the Republican lieutenant governor who would replace Sanford is already fending off rumors that he’s gay.
What is this?
I feel like Rich would have been one of the first folks at the fore of criticism of the GOP had people inside or outside the hearing started a whisper campaign based on Sotomayor’s single status.
As I wrote earlier in regards to stories about another member of Congress:
It’s 2009. This is an elected official who lives in a nation where four six states have granted marriage equality to same-sex couples. It’s completely unrealistic for a closeted anti-gay politician to think his or her hypocrisy won’t be revealed. It’s just as unseemly, though, to play with innuendo and carefully worded hypotheticals or implications in order to create a narrative about a person without reporting one fact that justifies that innuendo.
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Chris Geidner is the senior political writer at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found
To me, the key phrase is “aimed at anti-gay politicians on the Right”. The ‘gay-baiting’in this case seems to be a means of outing the senator and not a means of making any negative commentary about the morality or ethics of being gay or gay behavior. I’m enthusiastically in favor of outing gay politicians that promote anti-gay policies.
As I wrote above:
This “dancing around” gay issues without just asking the question or showing evidence of the answer reads more like the stuff of tabloids than The New York Times.
But Rich doesn’t use innuendo or a carefully worded hypothetical. He doesn’t attempt to create a narrative. He references a well-known fact: that there is talk in SC sufficient for the Lieutenant Governor to deny that he is gay.
There may be gay baiting going on in SC. That’s a different subject.
Is Rich supposed to pretend he’s unaware of it? Or use this fact to make sense of Graham’s defense of Sanford — that Graham would rather defend Sanford’s infidelity than the Lt-Gov’s possible homosexuality.
As for your suggestion that “It’s completely unrealistic for a closeted anti-gay politician to think his or her hypocrisy won’t be revealed.” I’d say closets can be much smaller and darker than you imagine.
I think that Rich does use innuendo regarding Graham in the piece. Do you not think the reference to Graham being unmarried and then shortly thereafter being “more empathetic” to someone “fending off rumors” that he’s gay? How is the hypothetical that Graham would be “more empathetic” to such a situation not create a narrative?
I know closets can be small and dark. I wasn’t saying all such secrets are revealed. My point just was that no anti-gay, closeted gay politician could be surprised if people start poking around.
Chris, I think you mis-read Rich here. He says, “Maybe Graham judges the Sanfords by a more empathetic standard than the Clintons because the Republican lieutenant governor who would replace Sanford is already fending off rumors that he’s gay.”
The empathy that Rich is mocking is not toward the person who is “fending off rumors that he’s gay,” but toward the philanderer whose continued presence in office means the Lt. Gov. won’t become governor. In other words, Graham would rather keep an admitted adulterer as governor than have an alleged homosexual be one.
I don’t think that Rich is necessarily implying that Graham is gay, just that Graham as an unmarried person has not had the experience of an obligation of fidelity and therefore doesn’t really know what it’s like to be tempted to breach that duty. (Frank Rich, who is on his second marriage, presumably does.)
Well said. I’m seeing it here in Florida with regards to Gov. Charlie Crist (who’s running for Senate). I never saw his sexuality (which is sort of an open secret in the St. Petersburg LGBTQ community) become an electoral issue from the left until he got married last year (compounded by the timing of his engagement to coincide with McCain’s VP search).
I personally think that those of us involved in campaigns and the electoral process on the left need to keep our damned mouths shut about all of it; Rachel Maddow (who I adore) is starting to sound as sanctimonious about Ensign & Sanford as Limbaugh once did about Clinton. If sexuality is a private matter, it’s a private matter – full stop.
Agreed, for the reason I mentioned below and especially about the sanctimony. (Hypocrisy, that’s another thing, but even that gets overdone.) Let me remind my fellow Democrats that of the 8 Democratic Presidents between the Civil War and Obama, 6 were known or admitted adulterers, including some of the best ones, FDR, JFK and the domestic LBJ — as well as Cleveland, Wilson and Clinton. Only Carter and Truman weren’t, afaik.
So let’s not condemn the Ensigns too fast — again, except for hypocrisy.
And i hope that the ‘left’ doesn’t make too big a thing about Crist’s gayness — which was first raised publicly during his gubernatorial campaign by a third-party challenger. Crist has been both a good representative and — according to my in-laws who live there — a good Governor. If there is any hope for the Republicans re-creating a viable, not totally insane, opposition party, maybe it would be good if Crist won, or at least won the primary over the exe crable Rubio.
Hear, hear. I disagree with many of Crist’s positions, but there is no doubt that he’s been a good governor and more moderate and thoughtful even than Jeb Bush. Crist is, to me, like the old McCain — yes, he’s a Republican, but he’s thoughtful and will do what’s right even when not politically expedient (like with the stimulus).
Rubio, on the other hand, is a total crackpot.
I have been bothered as well, and have written comments on liberal blogs condemning commenters, when my fellow liberals find out pretty definitely that a partcular Republican office holder is probably gay and feel this is an excuse to unleash their latent homophobia. Some of the comments about Larry Craig, or even Graham, would have gotten my whole side in an uproar condemning someone who made similar ‘jokes’ about a Barney Frank or a Tammy Baldwin.
I don’t know Graham’s sexuality, nor do I care. He is a far too complex man to fit easily under any label. (And there is another prominent Rep. Senator who also has rumors about him. If they are true, I’ll hold the nails while he fixes his closet door because I don’t want to contemplate that idea and if true, I don’t want to know it. Sheesh, it was bad enough being stuck with J. Edgar. Roy Cohn, Cardinal Spellman, probably Tail-Gunner Joe himself, and more recently David Dreier. Not this idiot too.)
I think this is arguably gay-baiting but I think its subtle enough that you really need to already have the background knowledge of rumors about Graham to pick up on it. So, I’d label it more of a read-between-the-lines inside-the-beltway joke that would fly over almost everyone’s heads. Jon Stewart also kinda did this in his Sotomayor segment on Thursday by listing a bunch of anonymous comments from the internet about Graham to challenge Graham’s listing of anonymous comments about Sotomayor.
I don’t really have a problem with either of those cases and I’m pretty ambivalent about more blatant outing. I agree that it can seem unseemly but I think it seems that way because we are so used to the media (I think undeservedly) treating sexuality as taboo. He’s chosen to be a public official, there’s nothing wrong with being gay, and we live in a world where privacy is becoming less and less of a legitimate expectation.
When a politician advocates a moral standard that he/she does not live up to and holds others to it, I think its fair game.
Bill Clinton never set himself up as a morally perfect preacher, so he is held to a different standard.But when an Ensign or a Sanford falter, oh boy is it time to hold them to that standard THEY set up for others.
Graham however, is a bird of a different feather.While he has stepped in the pool of the Religious Right, he doesn’t swim in the deep end much.
I think PG is correct that Graham’s empathetic attitude of forgiveness towards the Sanfords is the crux of that point. I don’t find much gay-baiting of Graham in the selections provided. But I have seen and heard other instances of “attacks” on Graham. Some of them I find quite distasteful and others in context are somewhat appropriate.
The question for me is, are the attempts to “out” him based on his hypocrisy or an idea that being gay is a smear in order to damage is image out of a need for revenge. Its the intent that I take into consideration.