In a touching article memorializing a recently deceased gay friend, Steve Lonegan, the mayor of Bogota, New Jersey, provides a timely reminder that there's a very different way to be a gay Republican office-holder. That's the path Lonegan has chosen: openly gay and dedicated to the principles of the Open Society. Lonegan writes:
Historically, gay Americans have struggled for the freedom to live their lives the way they choose in order to pursue happiness. This is the American Dream, the cornerstone of conservative thinking, and it is these principles that make the increasingly influential gay community the conservative movement's natural ally.
Sadly, it is just about impossible to imagine any nationally prominent Republican, gay or straight, make that statement-as opposed to the kind of statement Sen. Larry Craig made ("I am not gay")
Oops...my bad. Commenter Steve notes that Lonegan is not gay. I misread Lonegan's line about a "fellow conservative who also happened to be gay." Plus I must have become so used to straight Republicans' making obtuse statements that I automatically assumed Lonegan wasn't straight. These days, in the GOP, it's politically easier to be gay than gay-friendly.
6 Comments for “The Un-Craig”
posted by Linda Jean Runstein on
?Gays shouldn?t expect government to foist acceptance of their lifestyle on others.?
In my opinion religious conservatives shouldn’t expect government to foist acceptance of their lifestyle on others, period
posted by Bobby on
Easy to say, Linda, but remember that the first white people that came to this country where puritans.
posted by Steve on
“That’s the path Lonegan has chosen: openly gay …”
Ummmmm… Lonegan is not gay. Rather, he is “the very same conservative [mayor] who refused to be coerced into performing civil union ceremonies by government”, whom he refers to (in the third person) in his column. He may have “gay friends”, but he refuses to recognize their relationships as deserving of basic dignity and respect, even in his official capacity as a public official.
As he states in his column, Lonegan may never “understand the emotional turmoil that destroyed his [gay friend’s] life”, but as a gay person myself, I would tend to assume that some of that emotional turmoil was caused by a society (and government officials like Lonegan) who refuse to accept gay people as deserving of equal treatment in our society and insist on second class citizenship for us.
posted by Brian Miller on
Lonegan’s article is typical patronizing bullshit from a morally-defective politician whose writing style is a flowery and faux-aw-shucks effort to say “I’m not homophobic — some of my best friends are gay!”
posted by Daniel on
Look at the idiotic comments at freerepublic (http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1884160/posts) on the same article. When Kirchick says gay liberals are the most intolerant people he’s ever met, I wonder whether he’s met the “jesus freaks” of the conservative movement – who aren’t rare among their ranks. Conservatism itself, in contrast to what Lonegan intends it to be, seems to be more about maintaining the status quo than guarateeing *everyone* the right to pursue happiness (otherwhise, why were sodomy laws repelled so much after the ‘Founding Fathers’ declared everyone had the right to pursue ‘happiness’? and why such laws have been advocated nowadays almost exclusively by conservatives? What about historical legal discrimination against women? Are females excluded from ‘everyone’?). At least that’s the argument many conservatives make against gay unions: never happened such a thing, so it must be opposed.
About the article, it’s more than clear Lonegan is trying to pander to both gays and religious conservatives, by using that infantile language towards gays at the same time he brags about resisting being “coerced” by “the gay agenda” to acknowledge even the most basic legal recognition of gay unions. Behind his condescending words, however, there’s nothing Lonegan wants to offer gays. He only talks about the vague “right to pursue happines”, which I think means the right to privacy (since he obviously is opposed to any kind of legal recognition of non-heterosexual unions or families) – however, the right to privacy is guaranteed almost everywhere in America, and many Republicans are actually reluctant to speak out against it. Something curious: when a conservative urges his conservatives fellows to tolerate of gays, he often notes how rich and influential gays supposedly are (for example, Ann Coulter said all gays should be Republican, since many of them make so much money).
posted by raj on
Easy to say, Linda, but remember that the first white people that came to this country where puritans.
Odd, I was unaware that the people at Jamestown VA (1607) were Puritans. I had been led to believe that that was a business venture.
Actually, so was the MA Bay Colony, primarily.
There was an earlier (prior to Jamestown) attempt to colonize the eastern shore of what is now North Carolina. I forget the name of the settlement–Roanoke Island? That was also a business venture.