Fran Eaton at the Leader is threatening exactly what I expected them to do to potential Republican nominees–out them if they are gay.
Don?t kid yourself – as the homosexual agenda advances through the state and federal legislatures, more and more political decisions will be based on our elected lawmakers? attitudes about sexual behavior.
While moderate Republicans blast conservatives for withholding support from candidates on the abortion issue, the state party?s elite, so supportive of the gay agenda, is doing the same thing now on homosexual issues.
It?s all fair game in politics. They say they have a right to privacy. I say we have the right to know about the sex lives of those who request our votes and our support. After all, their responses to our questions could affect their vote on whether they uphold the sanctity of marriage as the constitutional amendment proposed for next week?s vote does.
I won’t have that happen here and in fact I just took down a long archived post that warned Illinois Democrats not to do it to Illinois Republicans. As far as I’m concerned, sex lives aren’t are business until they hit the public arena. Once that happens they are fair game, but it won’t start here. There are two comments that hit the edge right now and I won’t remove them, but they are the absolute edge of where to go with that. Over in Kos’ messages there are some similar types of issues that cross the line for what I’ll allow and I participated in those discussions, but I believe I was discouraging the use of such information.
All along, I don’t think that Jack Ryan’s sex life mattered nearly as much as his attempts to cover up public documents to spare his political career. In one sense, some argue that is a meta-scandal, but to me the difference between the Oberweis and the Ryan strategy of dealing with nasty divorces is important. And I still believe had Jack disclosed the issues it would have died relatively quickly last summer. Now, in the Hull case we had allegations of abusiveness which I think turned out to be not as damaging as the actual information.
Now, is being gay relevant to public office? I guess if you believe as Eaton does that it is relevant to the policy choices one makes, then it could be. So go ahead and lead the witchhunt Leader folks. You’ll be creating a mighty small coalition as you go.
I’m fairly sure that I’ve had nothing to do with that here, but my position is far more militant than yours. I often look at myself in shock when I find that, say, I don’t mind people being outed or that I actually am upset when politicians try to ban gay marriage. Most of the time politics is important to me, but not quite as personal.
In the case of gay rights, I’m a radical. I try to keep it tamped down some, though.
My wife has put me off women, but I can’t pass the dress code to be gay.
Out come the long knives.
I didn’t think that in theory, Jack Ryan’s personal life mattered that much (I’m voting for Obama anyway). However, I really dislike the moralizing on the right. There are hypocrites on the left and right, but when the Republicans want to “defend the institution of marriage,” while they engage in personal acts that degrade their own marriages, I think we have a right to know.
I’m with Nico…..one’s sex life should have no bearing on their fitness as a candidate, but one’s practice of hypocrisy should always be fair game!