The GOP Morality Scam

The Republican Party has made hypocrisy their political trademark the past couple of decades. Heck the biggest political headline of the day, likely Bush vetoing the Iraq emergency spending bill that passed in Congress, reeks of such hypocrisy. Bush who is choosing not to accept the funds made available by Congress by vetoing the bill somehow thinks he can blame the Congress for not funding the troops.

This post however, is about a different type of hypocrisy.

Sex is the biggest morality play to the Republicans far right religious base. They used President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky as a way to connect Democrats to immorality. Forget the fact that the man leading the charge, Newt Gingrich, was having an affair himself. They impeached Clinton in the House because of it and rode George W. Bush to the White House promising to clean up a supposedly dirty Washington D.C.

Now word gets out that a Washington D.C. escort service has been caught and it's speculated that it could contain a list of thousands of names (possibly including many prominent Republican lawmakers) was released to ABC News as the paid client list. Whether ABC, who was responsible for falsely blaming the Clinton Administration for the 9/11 attacks in a mockumentary last fall, releases the names of the key Republicans or not is still up for debate.

Regardless it's just another sign that Republicans are willing to say one thing and do another when it comes to sex. They use a false morality to seem above reproach on these issues. They confuse the deeply religious into thinking that these men are not the sinners their Democratic counterparts are. And they used those Evangelicals to help get Bush elected as President twice (with the help of some election fraud of course).

Gay Marriage seems the centerpiece of the Republican morality parade. According to the Right, Homosexuality is a "sin" and thus gay marriage is against the laws of God in the Bible.

The problem is this is a mean spirited way to prevent human beings who love each other from having the same rights as their heterosexual peers.

The people leading the charge say ridiculous things to equate their hate mongering for something moral.

Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott equated homosexuality with alcoholism, sexual addiction and kleptomania.

Former Texas State Republican Party Chair Robert Black, famously told the Log Cabin Republicans (Gay and Lesbian Republicans) that they didn't belong and "We don't allow pedophiles, transvestites or cross-dressers, either."

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said the following disgusting comments:

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery," Santorum said in the interview. "You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does."

At another point in the interview, Santorum said marriage is a bond between a man and a woman. "That's not to pick on homosexuality," he added. "It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be."

Their morality might not be so easy to shoot down if they weren't so blatant about their own lengthy forays into this supposed world of sin.

For instance, here in Wisconsin, John Gard was the furthest right wing ideologue in the Wisconsin Legislature. When Mark Green left his 8th Congressional District House Seat to run for Governor, Gard immediately popped up as the Right Wing's favorite choice to replace him. Gard had made a name for himself by being the man out front in pushing the Gay Marriage Amendment that unfortunately passed here last November.

Gard and the Republicans had control of the legislature then (that has since changed with the Republican purge at the polls that occured in the mid-terms) and he was considerably abusive in getting the amendment through the legislature including keeping opponents out of the room in which it was being put together and yelling, "Go to hell, Marlin!" at one of the opponents in the hall.

Someone this opposed to gay rights and gay marriage certainly would be squeaky clean himself in this area right?



This previously uncirculated photo slipped into my hands thanks to an anonymous source this week. It shows a younger John Gard from the mid-1980s (circled on the right), cross dressing as a female nurse at a party for his UW-La Crosse Cross Country team.

Is there anything wrong with this photo? Not in my opinion. College parties tend to be wild and fun affairs. Dressing outlandishly at one is by no means a news story. Unless you have bigoted views like Mr. Gard does and do so much to contribute against the very society in which Gays, Lesbians, TS/TV citizens live and breath. Seems pretty hypocritical to have such exclusive views and still cross dress..

Of course he's not the only one doing this.


Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Guiliani cross dressed a couple of times as well. It's all in good fun, until you go out, reverse course and say you are now against Civil Unions (which is a step below marriage even!).

Of course these are not the only walking contradictions for the party which has used Gay Marriage as such a wedge issue to win elections.



How about Evangelical Leader Ted Haggard (see: Jesus Camp)? He was the man described as President Bush's personal pastor. He also got caught having a gay affair and using meth. There's a guy who truly was practicing what he preaches.






What about Republican Mark Foley? He only had erotic online chats with underage male Congressional pages on the floor of the House and had sex with them.






Of course there was the White House's favorite press corps member, straight from a fake news agency, Jeff Gannon. Remember that guy? He had lots of visits to the White House, besides his duties as a "member of the press". Oh yeah and he turned out to be a gay prostitute.

It seems to me that this list could go on forever.



Maybe John Gard and the other Republicans should show a little more compassion towards the GLBT community instead of throwing them under the bus for political gain.

But of course if Gard chooses to run against Steve Kagen again in the 8th Congressional District, Karl Rove already has that targeted (see below, click image to enlarge) as a race he wants to win. Maybe Rove won't be so eager to funnel RNC funds to a cross dressing hypocrite next time.



Is that fair? Nope. But it's the game the Hypocrite Republicans created and now they get to play by it's rules.

-Rp