the Closets of Karl and Ken

[donsu]

by James Moore

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-closets-of-karl-and-k_b_28669.html


In July of 2004, Karl Rove was concluding a trip to Palm Springs, California and heading off to manage the reelection campaign of George W. Bush. The president's senior political advisor had settled on a strategy that he was convinced would increase turnout of the conservative Republican base as well as appeal to fundamentalist Christians in the African-American community.
Rove and his lieutenant Ken Mehlman, who ran the Republican National Committee, had targeted eleven swing states as locales to play out the wedge issue of gay marriage. Although they would work closely with the GOP state operations, Rove and Mehlman denied any coordination or involvement. They were, as they often are, lying.

Rove had left a secret behind in the Southern California desert that made bizarrely cynical his decision to use gay issues to motivate GOP voters. His father, who had just died, was gay. Louis Rove had been a prolific smoker and died of lung diseases but he had loved his son and was very proud of his achievements. Although he was not Karl's biological father, Louis was the only father he had ever known because Karl's mother Reba had divorced very early in her son's life. In an interview with Wayne Slater and myself after he had guided the first Bush victory, Rove emphasized that he did not consider Louis his stepfather. "I don't call him Louis," he explained. "He's my father, my adopted father."

-snip-

But what about RNC chairman Ken Mehlman? His sexual orientation has been the subject of speculation by gay rights advocates for several years and has been discussed on progressive radio talk shows. Mainstream reporters have never asked Mehlman if he is gay but Eric Resnick, a journalist for a gay publication in Cleveland, chased Mehlman down at a GOP fund-raising dinner in Akron. Resnick told Mehlman that he had been outed on blogs and talk radio and he wondered how he justified being gay and pushing an anti-gay agenda. Mehlman was non-responsive. Resnick persisted and finally asked Mehlman if he was gay.
-snip-
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read on

[havocmom]

1. gay or straight isn't the problem

Problem A: ANY denial of healthy, personal sexual identity. (Restrictive, control freak heterosexuals are a bigger problems than any OUT anything)

Problem B: Is it just me or do a lot of the neocons have father-figure issues?

[kimpossible]

2. It's the hypocrisy

and the whole living-in-glass-houses thing.

[havocmom]

4. Yep, but the root is the problem of cultural acceptance or bigotry

Rove and Mehlman just play into that bigotry. And they both seem to have issues with male authority figures. Lots of their bigoted followers seem to have the same symptoms. No acceptance, it's all controll all the time.

[donsu]

3. and winning at any cost thing - a gangster is a gangster

nt