Some Democrats are making hay over reports that Karl Rove had a gay stepfather, now deceased, accusing Rove of hypocrisy. I agree with those who are appalled by Rove's promotion of the anti-gay federal marriage amendment and otherwise carrying water for the religious right to get them to pull the GOP lever. But if the guy he called "dad" abandoned Rove's mom to lead the gay life in Palm Springs, and his mom then committed suicide, wouldn't you expect that might make him more hostile toward gays, not less?
Paging Dr. Freud?
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21 Comments for “Paging Dr. Freud?”
posted by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) on
An excellent observation Stephen. Or if not “at gays”, then at the gay lifestyle in it’s many manifestations. That would be in-line with Fundementalists’ “love the sinner, but hate the sin” mantra.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Mhm. And I’ll file their accusations of hypocrisy right next to my tapes of John Kerry endorsing antigay state constitutional amendments and Howard Dean telling Pat Robertson that he shared Pat’s values and so did the Democratic Party platform.
One would think that, if these Dems were so concerned about antigay hypocrisy, they would be attacking the Democrats and gay leftist groups who annually milk gay people for millions of dollars by claiming to be friendly, but do and support the opposite.
posted by Greg on
Apparently not. He is reported as getting on very well with his father. The charge of hypocrisy seems most appropriate.
Why though do you seek to blame gay people for Rove’s failings? Rove’s dad ceased being responsible for his son’s behavior when he turned 18 (prior to the time that he broke up with Rove’s mom).
While I would agree that Kerry is a hypocrite too, the level of damage that Kerry has done, relative to Rove is inconsequential. Kerry didn’t make an antigay campaign. Rove did.
posted by Bobby on
Who says Rove is hostile to gays? Jesus Christ, people, just because he’s not ga ga about gays doesn’t mean he’s hostile.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
This is par for the course for old-party stalwarts. Karl Rove is anti-gay because it wins him votes, not because he has any real bona-fide convictions either way about it. Ditto for the Democrats like Dean and Kerry, but the other way — they’re clearly uncomfortable about gay people in general (Dean even admitted that civil unions “make him uncomfortable”), but they support some semblance of it because it gets them votes.
If Karl Rove could get power for the GOP by marrying Jeff Gannon in a pink-frilled ceremony next to the Capitol reflecting pool, he’d do it immediately. If Howard Dean could win a Congressional majority for Democrats by referring to gays as “disgusting, subhuman filth” on national television, he would.
There’s no real ideological substance or conviction there — it’s all just plain old power politics.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Bobby, are you serious? Would you mind looking at how Rove handled the 2004 campaign?
NL, going overboard as usual, says, “If Karl Rove could get power for the GOP by marrying Jeff Gannon in a pink-frilled ceremony next to the Capitol reflecting pool, he’d do it immediately. If Howard Dean could win a Congressional majority for Democrats by referring to gays as ‘disgusting, subhuman filth’ on national television, he would.”
I have disliked Howard Dean from the first moment I saw him and listened to him, and I have no use for Rove, but I think this statement is silly. You would have greater credibility if you said something like, “Sure, there are plenty of differences within and between the two major parties, but they are both still terrible.” But even this small, cost-free concession is too much for you. This is a sign that you don’t really want to persuade people, you just want to be scornful. Well, ding ding ding, you’ve won the prize.
Steve Miller is right: Daddy Rove does not appear to have been any kind of poster boy for gay emancipation. The sad think about the younger Rove’s reaction to it is a phenomenon readily observable around here: over-generalization. Why should Rove’s resentment against his father be taken out on the rest of us? I’ve never married a woman, much less abandoned her.
posted by Randy R. on
We really have no idea what Rove’s relationship with his dad really was, or what’s his dad’s behavior really was like. Therefore, any conclusions are at best, speculation.
The bottomline: I don’t care one white WHY Rove has targeted the gay population: I only caret that he did.
posted by Br. Katana Of Reasoned Discussion on
I don’t think hipocrisy is the right charge on this subject. He is not pushing the anti-gay agenda due to any personal philosophy that I’ve ever heard. He’s just playing that card for the political charge is gives his campaign.
For the grassroots that he’s interested in mobilizing “Gay Agenda” is the bogeyman (bogeywoman?) that picked up where the Commies left off (and here “Islamofascist” fail to motivate the home front).
If and when the next bogeyman comes up, he’ll be there pushing that one, too.
posted by ReganDuCasse on
I can agree it would make him more hostile to the gay community.
But what so many like him fail to also admit to, is that straight people’s ill conceived demands that gay people marry them or sleep with them to be changed is the problem.
The straight world fails EVERYONE with this.
This is the collateral damage of the closet, marriage discrimination and unequal treatment under the Constitution that’s led to such family implosion.
Supporting MORE of the same policies that did this to his family, is what Rove can be challenged on.
posted by ReganDuCasse on
After all, the counter argument is always “gays can marry, they can marry the opposite sex.”
It’s a flip response, but when gay people do just that, the straight world still casts blame on gay people for deception.
The obvious answer is right in all our faces.
Gay people should be able to marry other gay people, and straight people can keep on marrying other straight people.
Why does this seem more of a problem than when gay people marry straight people?
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Regan wrote, “Why does this seem more of a problem than when gay people marry straight people?”
Because for the anti-gay right, denial of our legitimate existence as gay people is the key to their whole position. If they acknowledge that we really are gay and not just warped heterosexuals, their entire position collapses. Hence the perverse result of pushing gay people into loveless straight marriages, which only increases the likelihood of secret extramarital affairs, with all their attendant risks.
posted by Antaeus on
Can we all agree that in a world with gay marriage, there would be fewer Rove peres in fake marriages, leaving wreckage in their wake? If Karl Rove resented this AND if he were rational, he’d endorse gay marriage.
PS Why is Bobby taking the Lord’s name in vain above. I always suspected his shirt-sleeve evangelicalism to be a mere bagatelle.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
I have disliked Howard Dean from the first moment I saw him and listened to him, and I have no use for Rove, but I think this statement is silly. You would have greater credibility if you said something like, “Sure, there are plenty of differences within and between the two major parties, but they are both still terrible.” But even this small, cost-free concession is too much for you.
Why would I concede a false point?
Just look at how the two men campaign. Howard Dean happily sells out gays whenever he believes it will provide him with an advantage — despite insisting he’s “Mr. Pro-Gay.” And Karl Rove is just cynically manipulating religious extremist impulses by yanking the gay chain.
If Democrats could win using Rove’s techniques, they’d be using them, and if Rove needed to be pro-gay to win, he’d be pro-gay. Your safety blanket of “concession of tangible differences” might help preserve your false sense of security in meaningless “differentiation,” but it’s not matching the reality of the situation on the ground.
For the grassroots that he’s interested in mobilizing “Gay Agenda” is the bogeyman (bogeywoman?) that picked up where the Commies left off (and here “Islamofascist” fail to motivate the home front).
If and when the next bogeyman comes up, he’ll be there pushing that one, too.
Exactly right. Of course, the Democrat-defenders and Republican-rationalizers will insist that this isn’t the case and their poll-driven, focus-group-addicted, cliche-laced platforms represent something other than tortured pretzel logic advanced by people desperate to attain or retain power for themselves and their special-interest backers.
posted by Bobby on
“PS Why is Bobby taking the Lord’s name in vain above. I always suspected his shirt-sleeve evangelicalism to be a mere bagatelle.”
—I never said I was an evangelical, I just happen to defend freedom of religion, speech, guns, etc, regardless of who benefits from my defense. I’m a politically incorrect gay man fighting for a freer country.
posted by etjb on
I think that it is sad to try and excuse what Rove does, but pointing to his father or utter lack of personal convicton.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Who’s excusing what Rove does? I’m just pointing out the Dems do it too.
Take their thinly-veiled threat to challenge ABC’s broadcast license and sue broadcasters in the US and abroad for slander/libel if they broadcast ABC’s 9/11 fictional docudrama.
Of course, if the GOP threatened to pull CBS’s broadcast license and sued CBS after Dan Rather’s phoney Bush service record scandal — which was reported as fact, rather than fictionalized historical drama — the Democrats would be up in arms scrambling to defend “free speech.”
posted by ETJB on
“Who’s excusing what Rove does?”
Anyone who suggests that its ‘ok’ for him to follow an anti-gay political agenda, because his gay father might be an asshole.
“I’m just pointing out the Dems do it too.”
Really? Can you point to some one as powerful within the Democratic Party that has fueled up gay baiting and gay bashing since his career began?
Slander and libel is not protected by the First Amendment. Never has been and it should not be.
Ruther might have jumped the gun a bit, but much of what was said remains to be true.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Can you point to some one as powerful within the Democratic Party that has fueled up gay baiting and gay bashing since his career began?
One of Howard Dean’s first major media appearances was on The 700 Club to bash gay marriage.
John Kerry’s first press conference after losing the election in 2004 was called in Louisiana — not to question the very questionable happenings in Ohio, but rather to underscore his opposition to gay marriage in Massachusetts and other states, and reiterate his support for state constitutional anti-gay amendments.
Bill Clinton has been encouraging Democratic candidates to support federal and state anti-gay constitutional amendments since 1992. He advised Kerry to do so in 2004, and Kerry elected to support them only at the state level rather than the federal level — including supporting the Missouri amendment which bans civil unions as well as gay marriage.
Slander and libel is not protected by the First Amendment. Never has been and it should not be.
Docudrama is not “slander and libel.” This is typical Democratic whining about content which they don’t like, and which they’ll use their own power to stop — through any means necessary, including direct censorship and abuse of the tort system.
Ruther might have jumped the gun a bit
You think?
Rather reported factual inaccuracies about Bush which were demonstrably factually inaccurate. If your Demopublican party has the “right” to shut down a 9/11 docudrama because it doesn’t like the unflattering portrayal of various members of its own party, then surely the GOP has the “right” to shut down Rather, CBS, and Michael Moore for “slander and libel” too.
I hate how illiberal and anti-liberty the old parties are. It’s disgusting. They’re always willing to use their power and influence to censor, limit debate, and shut down open discussion with threats of legal action, government sanction, or intimidation in the private sector.
Such people don’t deserve power, and giving it to them is dangerous to our republic and our individual rights.
posted by raj on
On the subject matter of the post, let’s understand something. Karl Rove is a Republican activist probably because he, when he was a child, was beaten up by a girl who was a Democrat partisan, after he let it be known that he was a supporter of a Republican candidate. He had been humiliated, and he has hated Democrats ever since. And it is fairly clear that he would do anything to “smear” Democrats with the electorate in order to get Republicans elected. It’s well known that he unleashed a rumor that a Democrat running for re-election as a judge in Alabama (yes, state judges in most states are elected) was a pedophile. There was no evidence for it, and there was no gay implication, but it got his Republican candidate elected.
Rove doesn’t hate gays. But he will victimize them to get Republicans elected. And, if gays didn’t exist, he’d have to invent them to achieve his purpose. He’ll use anything to get Republicans elected and Democrats defeated because he was beaten up by a little girl. (NB: the “beaten up by a little girl” is well documented.)
BTW, just to let you know, James Dobson, head of Focus on (some peoples’) Family was also beaten up when he was a child. In his case, it was by an effeminate boy of the same age. I’m just amazed at the number of people from that part of the political sphere really turn out to have been wimps in their childhoods.
posted by raj on
Northeast Libertarian | September 11, 2006, 12:07pm |
>>>Slander and libel is not protected by the First Amendment. Never has been and it should not be.
Docudrama is not “slander and libel.”
It can be. Even if the characters in the “docudrama” do not use the same names as the people in real life, if the characters can be sufficiently closely identified with the characters in the “docudrama.”
The problem that the real life people would have in proving libel/slander in the US is the Supreme Court’s decision in NYTimes vs. Sullivan, which held that the plaintiff, who claimed to have been libelled or slandered, had to show that the defendant did so maliciously, if the plaintiff was a “public figure.” That is, the plaintiff could only recover if he or she could show that the defendant intentionally misrepresented facts to damage the plaintiff, or if the defendant exercised a willful disregard for facts known to him or her. That’s a difficult hurdle in the US.
But the standard is different in the UK and in Australia (a showing of maliciousness is not required) and, from my understanding, the program is going to be shown there. It will be interesting to see if the potential plaintiffs will file a libel action in the UK or AU if it is actually shown there.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
It will be interesting to see if the potential plaintiffs will file a libel action in the UK or AU if it is actually shown there.
It’s already been shown in both, along with another film which illustrates the aftermath of the fictional assassination of George W. Bush. Conservative Republicans, predictably, threatened to use their power to have that film yanked as well.
This is really quite illustrative of why neither old party is fit to govern. The prevailing wail from the left over the docudrama is “people are so fucking stupid that they’ll believe this movie” (illustrating their general contempt for the electorate who they seek to govern with their “superior intellect”), and the prevailing wail from the right is that “people are so fucking stupid they’ll believe anything we say.” Either way, the joke’s on us.