One person can make a difrence
Ok, I talked in my last post abotu the steriotype of the hyprocte politician. That the bible thumping jesus nut that is always mouthing off againt how evil homosexuals are is secretly doing the very thing that he preaches againt. In that post I mention that this is due in part to blowing things out of proportion. Party line vote from a decade ago? One short soundbite take out of context? Take that and spin it to make it seem that the politician is a zealot.
But there is another reason people are keen to embrase the steriotype of the hyprocte politician. That reason is Mike Rogers.
He lives in DC so he has several contacts in the political scene and knows a lot of inside dirt. And he activly encourages anyone with dirt to contact him. His goal in acumulating all these secrets is to out republicans. He does so under the justification that he is just paying them back for their bigotry and homophobia.
Note: Only republicans. Representives, senators, party staff, even people who work for or otherwise are associated with republicans. He even goes so far as to bash Ed Koch as a homophobe and a hatemonger because he endorced Bush.
Missing on his list of politicians he calls homophobes is democratic representeve Barney Frank. Frank spoke out saying he was opposed to San Francisco passing out marriage license to gay couples despite the fact that he himself is gay. Calling him a hypricote is a bit of a strech however. Frank does support gay marriage just not the way San Franciscico was going abotu it. But thats no further a strech than some of the reasons republicans have been called hypocrits.
Also missing from the list is democratic Connecticut State Senater Andrew Mcdonald. He is againt gay marriage also. Ok ok ok, so Mcdonald supports civial unions instead. Thats a strech also but not any more of a strech than if it had been a republican being called a biggot and a hatemonger for supporting ’seperate but equal’.
Not a word at all about democratic govener Jim McGreevey admitting he voted against gay marriage in an effort to hide his own homosexuality. That might not be so much a strech to call him a hyprocite.
No,Michael Rogers only targets republicans. Find any link to a republican no matter how casual the relationship. Then find any anti-gay stance no matter how thin the political cause. Link them together and scream hypocrite. And he is amazingly vocal about it. His blog gives people a ralliing point to gather around.
If there was someone just as vocal on the other side, then maybee the common public opinion would be that it was politicians who are hyprocrits instead of republicans who are hypocrits. But there isnt. So the public at large is just going to continue to assume that ‘publicily anti gay, privatly gay’ is a trait that is rampet on the right.