No-one Really Cares if Babeu is Gay
by Rai Goldin on Feb. 20, 2012, under Community, gay issues, News, Politics
Babeau with Senator Jon McCain concerning a useless boondoggle of a border fence
Sheriff Paul Babeau, a formerly closeted gay man, has outed himself to prevent his alleged boyfriend from doing it for him. There has been a lot of hyperbole on this topic, especially in our own little TC pond, concerning coercion and deportation. There’s been more discussion concerning the alleged boyfriend’s legal status as a resident of the United States.
While this is yet another boring Republican sex scandal, it’s got some potential to use this chaos to foster new societal growth.
We’ve come a long long way from Larry Craig calling Bill Clinton a “naughty boy” and then insisting he’s not gay after the busting up of the bathroom fandango. We’ve come even further from James McGreevey outing himself, quitting, and making his wife eat crap with a smile on national TV. At this point, the right wing is so up-in-arms about the (non) issue of gay marriage that they haven’t made much fuss about gay politicians openly running. This is refreshing, I suppose.
There are two things about this issue that are distressing to me.
1. Did Babeau threaten to deport the lover if the lover blew the whistle? If so, there goes his nascent Congressional run before it even gets started. No-one wants to elect somebody who will use their power of office for their own personal *ahem* butt-saving.
2. I wonder how much of a sigh of relief came from the Romney campaign? It’s one thing to say that they don’t want somebody accused of personal misconduct working for their campaign, but with the current right-wing anti-gay-marriage agenda, I’m sure they’re not all that sad to be rid of him altogether. They’ll never have to say it, though, because Babeau’s given them the perfect straw-man argument.
There are other issues that have been covered with racial invective and hyperbole, so I’m not going there. Others have tread that ground already.
What I do find to be hopeful? That it’s the abuse of power, and not his orientation, that’s causing the kerfuffle.
Still not gonna vote for him, though.
