The reaction by leading Republicans to questions about the sexual orientation of a Republican candidate for the United States Senate is further evidence of just how dismally behind the times the Republican Party is when it comes to gays and lesbians. It also points out a crucial hypocrisy in the Republican Party and the way it plays the gay card. Gay and lesbian people must speak up and tell the Republican Party it can’t have it both ways.
Congressman Mark Foley of West Palm Beach is seeking to be a U.S. senator from Florida. That he is gay has been an ‘open secret’ for years. Though he is known as a strong conservative on most issues, his voting record on gay and lesbian rights is now considered to be fairly good. That wasn’t always true. When he voted for the anti-gay federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, The Advocate named him as one of two closeted gay Congressmen. (The other was Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who was prompted to come out due to the story.)
Another media report recently re-ignited a frenzy of debate around Foley’s sexual orientation. A columnist for the Broward New Times, an alternative paper, asked in a column titled ‘Out with the truth; With his voting record at issue, why won’t U.S. Congressman Mark Foley just say he’s gay?’
Instead of coming out, however, Foley used the occasion to hold a press conference and say that all the talk about whether or not he is gay is ‘revolting and unforgivable.’ He blamed the Democratic Party for the uproar, saying they’d started the debate in an attempt to try and derail his candidacy. On the question of his sexual orientation, Foley was mum. He said it wasn’t anyone’s business, and he wasn’t going to answer. When asked at his press conference if he was in fact gay, Foley said that kind of question was ‘inappropriate.’
In response to the hullabaloo, a parade of Republican Party bigwigs trotted out their public support of the party’s closeted homosexual. Among them was House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who called the point-blank questions about Foley’s sexual orientation ‘underhanded rumormongering.’
OK, all that means Foley is gay.
But the issue isn’t really whether or not he’s gay, but why he and the Republican Party have their panties in such a twist over it. The answer, of course, is that the Republican Party is not only overwhelmingly anti-gay, but that the Party itself often uses the gay issue as a wedge one to rally its most conservative elements.
When Foley calls something as simple as stating you are gay to be ‘inappropriate,’ and DeLay says the talk about sexual orientation is ‘underhanded rumormongering,’ what they are really saying is that they still find homosexuality to be bad. If they didn’t, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
To be fair, the Democrats only have two out representatives in Congress (Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank), and if there are any gay senators, they remain closeted. To deny that being gay is an issue for any candidate would be unrealistic.
However, it’s hypocritical of the Republicans to point a finger at the Democrats about this, particularly in Foley’s case. The voters the Republicans are so worried about in the Florida elections are not people who would tend to vote Democratic. The Party is worried about its hardcore right-wingers, who certainly don’t want a homo representing them. You can bet if the Democratic candidate was gay—and especially if he was closeted—the Republican Party would seize on the issue and make the most of it in order to win votes.
The Republican Party does play the gay card politically. They harp on ‘family values’—as if we have neither families nor values—and woo conservative and fundamentalist groups of all kinds. Their national policies remain unapologetically anti-gay. And one of their top-ranking Senate leaders—Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania—just made a name for himself as a courageous defender of Republican values by spouting off at the mouth against homosexuals.
The Republican Party’s dilemma is about much more than the single candidacy of Mark Foley. Its real quandary is this: The Republican Party often offers up the gay issue as bait, clearly saying it is morally wrong and against the Party’s agenda. So when a gay U.S. Senate candidate comes along, how does the Party cope with backing a known homosexual? And how do you have a known homosexual in your ranks, and yet still be able to pick gay issues out of the political grab bag to rally your troops when you need to in the future?
The answer, apparently, is to try to keep your gay candidates in the closet.
Mr. Foley and the Republican Party may want this to fade and for everyone to just keep quiet. But the press and the gay community have a duty to keep raising the issue until the Republican Party ceases its incredible hypocrisy.
Mubarak Dahir receives e-mail at MubarakDah@aol.com