Last December, a longtime political strategist legally married his partner of 40 years in the state of Massachusetts. On April 9, their marriage was the subject of a news story in The New York Times. Since when does a five-month-old wedding count as news in the paper of record? Apparently, when the political strategist, Arthur Finkelstein, is a Republican, and the partner he lawfully wed is a man.
It's also news when a former president of the United States casts aspersions on the character of said gay Republican. The April 12 New York Times ran a story in the New York/Region section with the headline "Clinton Says Gay Opponent of His Wife May Be 'Self-Loathing.'" During a news conference on Monday, Mr. Clinton was asked if he was angry about Mr. Finkelstein's plans to raise $10 million for a political action committee, Stop Her Now. Mr. Finkelstein, you see, intends for Stop Her Now to do to the junior senator from New York in 2006 what Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to the junior senator from Massachusetts in 2004.
Not surprisingly, President Clinton found a curious way of defending his wife's honor. He commented that the anti-Hillary campaign made him "sad," and referred to the Times article on Finkelstein's own same-sex marriage and the GOP's campaigning against same-sex marriage last fall. Then there was this insight:
"I thought, one of two things. Either this guy believes his party is not serious and is totally Machiavellian in its position, or you know, as David Brock said in his great book Blinded by the Right, there's some sort of self-loathing or something. I was more sad for him."
David Brock, you may remember, was the conservative author of such 1990s bestsellers as The Real Anita Hill and The Seduction of Hillary Rodham - both tomes reveling in lurid personal details of liberal women loathed by conservatives - before renouncing his conservative politics and coming out as gay in Blinded by the Right. Brock's own story is a classic conversion narrative; by accepting the truth of his gay identity, he saw the light and cast off his nefarious, self-loathing conservative ways.
By invoking Brock, Clinton means to suggest that Finkelstein can only be a true supporter of his party if he somehow hates himself for his sexuality. If he works through this "self-loathing," Clinton implies, then the consultant might also open his eyes.
Clinton's comments are disgusting but hardly shocking. He was never a consistent proponent of husbandly virtue. He also hasn't been a consistent supporter of gay and lesbian Americans. Sure, he says he feels our pain, and he did appoint a handful of A-gays to prestigious positions. But he also signed into law the most explicitly anti-gay legislation in the history of our federal government: the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in 1993 and the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Did President Clinton sell gays down the river because he was "totally Machiavellian" or because he was filled with "some sort" of loathing?
Perhaps this choice is as unfair to President Clinton as the one he posed to Mr. Finkelstein. Even so, Clinton's comments reflect the significant role that fear and loathing have played in recent political matters involving gays. For the GOP last fall, anxiety about court-forced gay marriage proved an essential get-out-the-vote tool. Direct mail flyers sent by the Republican National Committee into states like Arkansas and West Virginia - states won twice by President Clinton - featured a Bible marked with the word "BANNED" and two men looking lovingly at each other marked with the word "APPROVED"; the flyer suggested this is what Democrats would impose if they regained power in Washington.
On the one hand, it's hard to see how a self-respecting gay person could support a party that deployed such hateful, untruthful campaign tactics. On the other hand, it's easy to see why 23 percent of gay and lesbian Americans voted to re-elect President Bush when the alternative was John Kerry, who last showed courage on a boat in Vietnam in the 1960s.
Since Kerry was one of 12 senators to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, no one honestly thought that he didn't support same-sex marriage in his heart. His official position was meant to neutralize the issue by opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment, supporting civil unions in principle but insisting that the decision is up to the people of each state.
For Kerry's gay supporters, this position was an anti-Atkins diet, all carbs and no protein. He fed them empty calories of moral support while avoiding the red meat of political risk. The Senate lacked the vote to pass the constitutional amendment, and virtually every gay rights group was advocating for marriage, not civil unions, which would thus fail to materialize. For many nonpartisan gays, choosing between Kerry and Bush on gay issues was like choosing between heartburn and diarrhea: both were tough to stomach.
For both parties, loathing of the other trumps the self-interest of gays in policies regarding their lives and liberties. But then that is, after all, the point of joining a political party. Since President Bush endorsed the FMA last year, it's become commonplace to castigate gay Republicans for sharing a big tent with the likes of Alan Keyes and Sen. Rick Santorum - or, at the very least, question their self-image as Clinton did.
There's a much simpler explanation that Clinton has missed: Gays can be accomplished political hacks. Loyalty to the party can trump loyalty to one's identity group. Party unity gave Republicans a working majority under their big tent. This development no doubt confounds national Democrats like Clinton, who have long believed that your identity is your politics. It's time for Democrats to see the light.