The Gay-Nazi Connection strikes again!
To some folks, "outing" seems a little off-color. After all, a person's sex life is their own business, right? Why does it matter that Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley Billionaire, is outed by Gawker? He claims that revelations of who he actually is, as opposed to a false identity he presented to others, somehow harmed him - as if there is a Constitutional Right to Deceive.
And in the era where gays were persecuted and even killed (an era that still exists in much of the planet - how hard we have it here in America!) maybe "outing" someone was indeed a crime - you were handing that person a death sentence at the hands of the mob, or the government, or at the very least, destroying their career and livelihood. But thankfully, those days are behind us, thanks in part to a lot of brave people who refused to live in the darkness.
But what about the people who not only sat aside and did nothing, but tried to perpetuate the darkness? The folks who not only refused to "come out" but wanted to make sure the closet door was nailed shut for all time, for all people - not just themselves. What about them? Shouldn't that level of hypocrisy be exposed?
So it is relevant that Peter Thiel is gay, if he is, at the same time, funding anti-gay legislation. It exposes his political hypocrisy. And no, once you become a Billionaire and make yourself into a national figure, you really have no expectation of privacy. Celebrities trade on their lives as reality shows - they can't claim outrage when the Paparazzi take photos of them over the fence. Don't want the intrusion? Don't make yourself a celebrity.
But Thiel is not the only example of a gay man (and it seems to be mostly men) who in private are liberal, but in public are staunch conservatives. Perhaps this goes back to the Spartans - it certainly goes back to the Nazis. I wrote about the Gay-Nazi Connection twice before. Actually three times. Well,maybe four. Now is number five.
I don't keep up on the news as much as I should, so it was a surprise to me when someone mentioned offhand that Lindsey Graham was gay. Apparently he was "outed" by a male prostitute back in July, who claimed that all the rent-boys in DC knew of him as "Lady G". At first, I thought this was just a rumor - surely this paragon of South Carolina right-wing values was a family man with twelve blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan children, with a wife with a beehive hairdo who home-schools them all in Christian Virtues, right? I mean, right?
Well, not exactly. He is, what we used to euphemistically call "a confirmed bachelor" - like Charles Nelson Reilly, or Liberace, or Jim Nabors, or Rock Hudson. You had to use that sort of ruse back then, even if you were as flamboyant as Richard Simmons. It was understood, with a wink and a nod, what was going on, but there was "plausible deniability" in place - a phrase that would haunt America in other aspects, as the 1970's progressed. Some of these men only "came out" later in life when it was safe and their careers were over, others when exposed, still others, never. Apparently Richard Simmons is clinging to the idea that he is straight.
Sadly, progress hasn't come to South Carolina just yet. Maybe Peter Thiel can address the Republican National Convention and "come out" as a Gay Trump supporter without consequence - extreme wealth has its benefits. He has no re-election to face. But for poor Lady G - what are her options? After all, if word gets around his home district, he could face a primary challenge to the right.
So, even after he is humiliated and degraded by Trump, and even after he pledged to never support Trump in the 2016 election, he came around and became Trump's lapdog in the end. Maybe The Donald doesn't have a racy sex-tape with Graham in nylon stockings - or maybe he does. But what really matters is that Trump could rile up the "base" and run a far-right candidate in the GOP primaries in South Carolina, and take away Graham's seat.
Sadly, this is exactly why, back in the bad old days, that homosexuals were deemed unfit for many forms of government service - particularly anything that involved a security clearance. If the Rooskies got incriminating photos of a "homo" they could blackmail him into handing over State Secrets! Of course, the policy of firing any government employee (or member of the military) who was "outed" only served to play into the Russian's hands. I mean, they gave the Russians one of the best forms of blackmail. Today, it is a lot harder to do, unless you have been in the closet as long as the Lady G.
So you can see the conundrum Lindsey is in. He should have gotten a "beard" (a wife) long ago, and sired a few kids - that's always good for keeping the rumors at bay. But as time went by and being "out" was "in" it was too late for him, as he has kept up the ruse for so long, and spent so much time keeping his own people down. In fact, I suspect that is why a lot of these right-wing "Wide Stance" Republicans are so anti-gay. They have literally invested their lives in living in the closet. They can't let this shit go mainstream - if so, there goes their whole lifestyle. And the hypocrisy exposed would just be so unforgivable - to both the Left and the Right.
The world has changed, rapidly. Or at least social values in the USA and most Western countries has changed rapidly. Bear in mind that some of the "bad old days" scenarios I am talking about were not but a decade or two ago - all within my lifetime, in fact. It is pretty amazing to see such change in such a short period of time. Closeted Gay Republicans, on the other hand, never expected to see such rapid changes and often were literally caught with their pants down - well, at least Larry Craig was.
But with rapid social change comes push-back. Social changes make people uneasy, whether it is gay marriage, or the European Union. The less educated they are, the less accepting people are of change. Hell, in some parts of the South, the idea that the Civil War was lost has yet to really sink in. And as I predicted, while Gay Marriage may seem like a swell thing (and personally benefit me) it created a lot of push-back on the Right. How ironic it was enacted through a Conservative Supreme Court Justice.
So don't hold your breath waiting for Lady G. to have her coming out cotillion. Because it will never happen, even if every male sex-worker in the District of Columbia signs an affidavit to that effect, or if Trump releases his blackmail sex tape. Graham has backed himself into a corner, further and further, particularly with his acquiesce to Trump. Like Larry Craig, he may just fade away, or worse. When you stretch reality that far, it snaps back with a vengeance. A mental breakdown is not out of the question.
Poor Lady G! She just wanted to have a little fabulousness. And that is all ruined!
UPDATE: The Onion called this nearly a decade ago. What is taking so long?
The Onion called this when Romney was running for President!
