Family Values

Another Right Wing Republican has been caught with his pants down with another man. Its getting to be old news. And yes, this guy was another hypocrite who has been blaming the homosexuals for everything wrong with America.

The guy's name is Troy King. He is Alabama's Attorney General and many thought he was a likely front-runner for governor in 2010. When I first heard the name I assumed he grew up on Troy Street and his first dog's name was King. Or vice versa. Or however it is you figure out someone's porn name.

The sordid details can be found at a variety of sites reporting the news:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6175
http://www.opednews.com/articles/McCain-Scrubs-Troy-King-fr-by-David-Caputo-080714-645.html
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=77366

The basic story is that Troy King's wife came home and caught him in flagrante delicto in their marital bed with a young man, apparently an aide. King has been quoted as saying homosexuality is the "downfall of society". He has worked tirelessly to outlaw sex toys. Apparently "male aides" are not "sex toys". King was head of McCain's leadership committee in Alabama, and suddenly all references to King have been wiped clean from the McCain campaign's website.

If the bare bones of the story sound familiar its probably because we get this story so regularly, only the names change: Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Jim West, and the granddaddy of all of them, Roy Cohn.

Meanwhile Martin and I just returned from the Rainbow Families-Great Lakes (RFGL) Family Week.

Eighty Families come together to play and learn. Most important, the kids have a chance to just have fun with other families that look like theirs. Kids of gay parents learn early that its OK to be different, and that families come in all shapes and sizes. Being different can be both a blessing and a curse, and it is pretty special to these families to have a week without the stress of adapting to society's norms.

These families have often had to live a part of their family life in the closet: in order to get an adoption authorized, or to get custody of a child, or get decent housing, or get a school to help their children. The satisfaction of their family life is in direct proportion to how openly they can lead their lives.

For one week these families can truly live a family life out of the closet.

It is a joy to behold.

Like most gay folk I lived a period of my life in the closet. And like most gay folk I would do all sorts of things to deny what I knew to be true about myself.

And it was miserable.

It almost makes me feel sorry for right-wing closet cases. Almost. However in many cases these folks denial of their sexuality is literally killing people. Because they have more power than the average gay-guy-in-the-closet they can kill AIDS education programs, prevent needle exchange programs, create roadblocks for safe-school programs, outlaw second-parent adoptions, and generally screw up parental rights. Their political actions give bullies power in the schools and comfort perpetrators of hate crimes.

Perhaps we need to start a special camp for closeted right wing nut cases. I envision seminars on "dealing with your inner demons", and "finding appropriate sex partners", and the most important one, "Coming Out 101".

Good Luck, Troy.