A Wild & Crazy Guy. Richard Nixon was one of the scariest men ever to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Not widely reported, however, was his fixation with "homosexuals." According to a March 21 Washington Post story based on newly transcribed White House tapes (yes, he taped EVERYTHING -- for posterity), Tricky Dick launched into the following tirade in May of 1971, while top aides H.R. "Bob" Haldeman and John Ehrlichman laughed nervously at their bosses increasingly demented history lesson. Proclaimed Nixon:
"The point that I make is that, goddamn it, I do not think that you glorify on public television homosexuality. You don't glorify it, John, anymore than you glorify, uh, whores. -- I don't want to see this country to go that way. You know what happened to the Greeks. Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo, we all know that, so was Socrates."
Gosh, I guess those homos created classical civilization just so they could destroy it, huh? Nixon continues:
"Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. . . . when the popes, when the Catholic Church went to hell in, I don't know, three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual. . . . Now, that's what happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France. And let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn it, they root them out, they don't let 'em hang around at all. You know what I mean? I don't know what they do with them. Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, uh, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing it. They're trying to destroy us."
One gets the clear sense that Nixon actually admired the efficiency of repression in the Soviet Union, the way the commissars simply made homosexuals and other undesirables disappear. It's just those damn commie hippies in the U.S. that were the problem.
Mitt's Not Dick. Fortunately, there has been progress since the 1970s, and that includes progress within the Grand Old Party. Businessman Mitt Romney, who spearheaded the recent, very successful Winter Olympic games, is now the likely GOP candidate for governor in Massachusetts (after the hapless Jane Swift, the unelected incumbent, dropped out of the primary). Here's something positive to report, from the Log Cabin Republican's "Inclusion Wins" e-newsletter:
Sounds promising -- a hopefully non-RINO (Republican in Name Only) who also appears to be good on gays. Stay tuned.