McCain hires another senior gay staffer, one week after

[JackBeck]

he promises religious right to be more anti-gay

John Aravosis (DC)

The Gay-Talk Express strikes again.

John McCain needs to decide who he wants to be. Two weeks ago, McCain met with gay Republican leaders (people his staff had met with repeatedly before). After the religious right flipped out, McCain then met with virulently anti-gay religious right leaders, and promised those leaders that he would be more vocally anti-gay in public in the future. Then one week after that, McCain outfoxed those same religious right leaders by hiring a gay man to one of the most senior positions in his campaign.

Now, I think it's great that John McCain has such an affinity for openly gay men. In fact, McCain has had openly gay senior staff on the Hill and in his campaigns going back to the early 90s, at least. Again, that's great. Although John McCain is still pretty bad on a lot of gay issues, having so many gay men on staff over the years has to have changed his heart, and the hearts of McCain's other staffers. It's tough for McCain and his staff to be too anti-gay when he's got senior gay people permeating his entire outfit, senior people putting a face to the anti-gay policies that people like Burress are demanding that McCain promote. Not to mention, gays leak like sieves. The more gays McCain hires to senior positions, the more those gays are going to leak the details of anything McCain is working on that even smells of being anti-gay. It's a small town, and an even smaller gay community. People talk. And even gay Republicans aren't usually too willing to let people like Phil Burress do much damage.

So, while I still think that Barack Obama will do 100 times more good than John McCain for all Americans, including gay Americans, I'm heartened that John McCain remains so committed to weaving openly gay men, and even gay activists, into the senior-most reaches of his campaign. Regardless of what McCain promises the likes of Phil Burress, the rainbow cabal is in place, and the cabal rarely lets us down.

http://www.americablog.com/2008/07/mccain-hires-another-senior-gay-staffer.html

[MercutioATC]

1. Ahhh...journalism psychology 101.

Say something enough times and it will stick in people's heads.

...or maybe he was trying to see how many times he could use the words "McCain" and "gay" in one article...

[JackBeck]

4. So let me get this...straight...

Are you saying that using the word "gay" over and over to talk about the gay group, Log Cabin Republicans (an activist gay group), that McCain met with, even thought he tells the Religious Right that he is anti-gay, all the while hiring gay staff, one which is a senior staff member who is openly gay, could lead the casual reader to conflate these facts into thinking that McCain himself is gay?

On edit: That may be the case, but I think we need to remind the fundie, theosexuals, tat this is yet another example of McCain showing how he flip-flops.

[MercutioATC]

20. No, I'm saying gay staffers have long been with McCain.

...and I applaud McCain's gay hiring practices, however hard they've been on him. His commitment to take a firmer anti-gay position notwithstanding, McCain's new gay staffer, as well as his old gay staffers, reveal a lot about his moral orientation. He's exposed himself to the gay community...as a man who's willing to get into bed with them if he sees something he likes.

See?

[JackBeck]

25. Ahh, I think I see our point.

By embracing a gay staff, it could appear that he is shoving the gay agenda down the throats of the Religious Right.

Got it.

[papapi]

31. That visual image is uncompromising. Can we get that on YouTube?

[TwilightGardener]

2. Does this mean he'll pull his "gay sweaters" back out of the closet?

Does anyone else besides me remember that little McCrazy tantrum last winter?

[Lucky 13]

3. no..... please do share!

[TwilightGardener]

5. Oops, it was from last summer--how time flies:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/11/mccain-dislikes-wearing-gay-sweaters/

[merh]

9. geeezzeee, I hadn't read that before

that guy is just not playing with a full deck, his carrier is lost in the bermuda triangle.

:crazy:

[izquierdista]

13. That's a great slogan!

"His carrier is lost in the Bermuda triangle." :rofl: :rofl:

That would make a great bumper sticker. Honors his military service, yet dismisses him completely. :applause:

[merh]

15. its how I see the poor bastard

that just popped into my head as I was posting. :eyes:

:blush: :hi:

[Fleshdancer]

6. refresh my memory on this

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about but I'm intrigued.

[TwilightGardener]

7. See above link, post #5.

[Fleshdancer]

16. WOW. I think my husband is gay

My husband likes to purchase v-neck sweaters from Banana Republic. I had no idea sweaters had a sexual orientation...probably because I didn't think they had sexual organs (or any organs for that matter) or the ability to love, but obviously I'm not an expert in sweater sexuality. When is this determined? When they're a ball of yarn??

I do know that my husband wears gay sweaters though thanks to the link in post #5. If he can force his gay sweaters out of the closet and out into the open, then perhaps I can force him to do the same.

:rofl:

On a more serious note:

:wtf:

[TwilightGardener]

17. I applaud your husband for his willingness to appoint openly gay apparel

to his wardrobe lineup.

[Fleshdancer]

19. not only does he appoint openly gay apparel...

he also does not cater to bigoted apparel to score political points. He's kinda awesome that way. :D

[newmajority]

21. Maybe the gay sweaters come from the wool of gay sheep?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1582336,00.html

[Fleshdancer]

30. ROFL!

:rofl:

[papapi]

33. Perhaps you meant gay goats. . . .Changthangi, Dumbledore . . .

and all that, you know.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

37. LOL!

[JackBeck]

8. I sure hope a gay senior staffer wasn't fired

over forcing McCain to wear gay sweaters.

But I guess even if that gay senior staffer was fired, another gay senior staffer was hired to replace the other gay staffer that was fired.

[TexasObserver]

10. Is this another story about Charlie Crist?!

[JackBeck]

14. Or Mark Foley.

Either way, the point that needs to be driven home is that McCain doesn't have any issues with openly gay men on his staff.

And the religious right fundies need to know that this is his position when it comes to having gay staff members, regardless of what he tells these theosexuals in private.

[tishaLA]

11. Is this a friend of Lindsay?

Or of Gov Christ?

[JackBeck]

18. Could be a friend of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC).

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1653

Regardless of who the gay senior staffer knew before the promotion, what should be repeated over and over until it finally sinks in for the fundies, is that it is obvious that John McCain doesn't have any issues with hiring openly gay staff members.

[TexasObserver]

22. the number of high visibility gay GOP men has long amazed me

It's a testament to the GOP's absolute duplicity. They use homosexuality as an issue, even as scores of their important GOP figures are gay men. Patrick McHenry is a perfect example. Mark Foley. Larry Craig. The GOP doesn't care who is gay, as long that person is a loyal GOP member or operative AND they at least nominally stay in the closet.

I really do not understand all the gay men who are Republicans.

[JackBeck]

24. There are vastly more heterosexual Republicans than gay ones.

But the ones that do get outed or get exposed engaging in hypocritical behavior completely expose the GOP's duplicity.

Do remember, though, that when hypocrites like Vitter get exposed, the Party's reaction is quite different than when the Craig's and Foley's are exposed.

[PM7nj]

27. Oh, his name itself is very gay.

I know, it is mine as well. He gives me a bad name :(

[JackBeck]

35. It could be worse.

Your name could be Jeff Gannon.

:evilgrin:

[Hieronymus]

32. Crist is marrying a beard, so that he can run for VP.

[papapi]

12. McShame's trophy gay. "Spy vs. Spy" in my opinion.

[JackBeck]

28. Essentially, we need to make sure that the theosexuals know

McCain doesn't mind hiring openly gay men for senior staff positions.

[Hoof Hearted]

23. Oh my. What to make of this. He can't exactly advertise it in his campaign commercials

"I'm John McCain and I approved of hiring lot's of gay people"

His mouth-frothing base is already demoralized, if they find this out they'll start digging bunkers and hoarding bibles.

[JackBeck]

26. They get pretty defensive when we expose these types of things.

Remember in 2004 when Kerry mentioned Cheney's lesbian(!) daughter? They went into full-blown attack mode.

The wingers and freepers are caught in a continual loop of denial.

[Hoof Hearted]

38. If only we could push that loop away from the earths gravity.........

[Arkana]

29. The fundies should be having FITS over this.

[JackBeck]

34. Yet they won't, since the sheeple are in complete denial.

On top of that, can you imagine the PR disaster if James Dobson were to hold a press conference calling for this gay senior staffer's firing?

Actually, now that I think about it, we should all email Dobson to let him know that McCain just hired an openly gay man as a senior staffer.

[JoFerret]

36. The GOP has always ben stuffed

with gay staffers. Not synonymous with gay friendly policies unfortunately.

[JackBeck]

39. You know that...and I know that...

But do the Religious Right fundies know that?

I wonder how they would react if they found out that the GOP has a long history of hiring openly gay staffers.