A Log Cabin Republicans response this
week to reports that Senator John McCain's Chief of Staff Mark Buse
is gay, where the gay Republicans called the news a non-event, is
further proof the group is in total denial
On Monday, gay activist Mike Rogers delivered his Roy Cohn award to Buse at his Washington D.C. office.
The award recognizes high-profile gays and lesbians who work against
the interests of the gay and lesbian community. There is no record
of Buse acknowledging he's gay publicly.
In making his case against Buse, Rogers
said: “Mark Buse is not just a chief of staff for a homophobic
United States senator, but he is helping that senator get elected to
the White House.”
Rogers wrote on his blog Monday that
three sources have confirmed to him that Buse is gay and in a
long-term relationship with another man. And an ex-boyfriend of some
twenty years has also stepped forward, speaking to satellite radio
host Michelangelo Signorile.
But Log Cabin Republicans
Communications Director Scott Tucker vehemently disagreed.
“There is no 'bombshell',” Tucker
wrote in response to the Michelangelo Signorile headline Hypocrisy
Bombshell: Antigay John McCain has a Gay Chief of Staff. “Mark
Buse has been openly gay for years and has acknowledged as much. So
the notion that he has been 'outed' is simply false.”
Tucker, who called the outing a “stunt”
and a “witch hunt,” used it as evidence that McCain was an
inclusive Republican. “John McCain is an inclusive Republican who
hires the best people, regardless of sexual orientation.”
Cleveland chapter president Dale
Giesige went further in attacking gay Democrats. “Democrats talk
with inspirational speeches, full of love and affection for the gay
community – then sit on their dead bottoms and pass nothing but
gas,” Giesige wrote in the Gay People's Chronicle.
The gay Republicans, who say they
support McCain for non-gay issues, such as fiscal conservatism and
national security, want it both ways: They put down Democrats for
not passing substantial pro-gay legislation, while exempting
Republican leaders of such scrutiny by claiming it's of little
interest to them.
Maverick gay Republicans, then, could never see, or admit to seeing, the hypocrisy in the Buse outing.
Still, gay Republicans, despite their
strong fiscal conservatism, are responsible for the financial crisis
on Wall Street. Well, all gays and lesbians are – that is, if you believe Christian fundamentalists who are blaming us for the calamity.
In a September 25th blog
post titled The Nation Will Right Itself If It Fixes Sex,
Christian Civil League of Maine Executive Director Michael Heath
writes that the financial crisis facing Wall Street is a symptom of
America's sinful sexual culture, including the acceptance of gay
unions.
And a related post by Center for
Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian at the National
Review's website pushes a similar theme, this time focusing on
Friday's failure of WaMu.
Krikorian suggests the big bank failed
because it was too accommodating to minorities, including gays,
African-Americans and Hispanics.
In better news, director
Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw have matched Hollywood actor
Brad Pitt's $100,000 donation to defeat Proposition 8 – the ballot
initiative that would make gay marriage in California illegal.
“By writing discrimination into our
state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of
each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual
orientation,” the couple said in a statement. “Such
discrimination has NO place in California's constitution, or any
other.”
And it was our own Gay Entertainment Report that brought me news about a soon to be released film that documents the first big win for gay marriage advocates in the United States. Saving Marriage is about the battle that followed the
Massachusetts 2004 Supreme Court ruling making gay marriage legal in
the state.
The Gay Slant pops in most Saturdays at
On Top Magazine. Walter Weeks is a writer for On Top and can be
reached at ww@ontopmag.com.