Another “Family Values” Republican Comes out of the Closet

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Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.

Hello, ‘Frisco!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys9xn60IBXA&feature=related

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter’s questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that there would be questions about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.

“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life,” Mehlman said. “Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago.”

Privately, in off-the-record conversations with this reporter over the years, Mehlman voiced support for civil unions and told of how, in private discussions with senior Republican officials, he beat back efforts to attack same-sex marriage. He insisted, too, that President “The Chimp” George W. Bush “was no homophobe.” 

Mehlman’s leadership positions in the GOP came at a time when the party was stepping up its anti-gay activities — such as the distribution in West Virginia in 2006 of literature linking homosexuality to atheism, or the less-than-subtle, coded language in the party’s platform (”Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country…”).

Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.

Watch Bill Maher “out” Mehlman:

 

Are any of these neo-con “fambuhly values” shysters not spending their fee time in Greyhound bus stations, wide-stance akimbo? 

5 COMMENTS

  1. You’re right – but these god-damned Republican Elmer Gantrys and their enablers (Glenn Beck, etc.) do nothing other than talk up bullshit issues like this while ignoring the real problems that are destroying the country. Flag-humping, prayer in school, gay marriage… bullshit “issues” but the Republicans know this crap sells to the element out there that thinks Sarah Palin is the Joan d’ Arc of freeeeeeeeeeedom.

  2. I am not a fan of gay marriage or marriage of any sort. To be honest, if this country wasn’t so bound in red tape by lawyers and tax accountants, the whole idea of marriage might be less appealing. As for this guy, he can join the ranks of Larry Craig and a whole host of other foot tappers out there. I don’t really care about this issue and nor should anyone else. Who the hell cares who cuts the wedding cake if the country is 20 trillion in debt and every conceivable income producing job has been outsourced to China, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Pakistan?

  3. That (the hypocrisy – and the cynicism) is what makes me loathe the Republican Party. I’ve worked in DC as a reporter/editorial writer for a conservative paper (Washington Times) so I hung out in the same world as these ass-clowns and know just how contemptuous they are of the boobs who support them based on their “family values” spiel. They know it’s crap – but it sells. And it lets them dodge doing anything that is genuinely conservative – in terms of throttling back the scope and cost of government. That they’re not the least bit interested in. Just like the Democrats. Both parties (really, they’re just branches of the same single party – the corporatist party) want the same thing – power. The how and why is just window dressing.

  4. Yet another fundamentalcase hypocrite comes out of the closet. Mind you, I dont have anything against the man for being gay. Its his hypocrisy which busts my balls. God created Adam and Eve…and Adam and Steve, as well as Amy and Eve. GET OVER IT! For you family values types, this churchgoing Catholic man says focus on your own damn family long enough to get the divorce rate under control, then we can talk about the LGBT community.

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