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Outrage

He should have been John McCain’s running mate in 2008. A southern

politician, a leader of the party, a frequent guest on the Sunday morning

shows, a solid record of voting for family values and military

defense, and most importantly one of the Arizona Senator’s best

friends in Washington. He criss-crossed the country with his buddy, acted

more like a traditional Vice-Presidential candidate than Sarah Palin,

was the attack dog every standard bearer needs so he or she can

appear to take the high road. So why wasn’t this gentleman on the

ticket and why isn’t he ever mentioned as a future occupant of the

White House? He has the resume for it, especially when the

Republicans are in such need for a national spokesperson. I am

surprised the party faithful are not breaking into Disneyland’s Hall

of Presidents and trying to steal the Ronald Reagan robot for a run in

2012?

Some believe the answer can be found in the 52-year-old, never

married politician’s forced masculine walk. It is ironic that the seat

in the Senate, once held by a Southern racist demigod, now contains the

seat of a man he described as “light in the loafers.” Much like

Congressman Mark Foley, it seems the only ones who do not know about

the team this political heavyweight plays for are the voters of his home

state. While everyone in Washington imagines his or herself as a

future Commander-in-Chief, there is another Southern Senator, an

official leader of the party, who has been one of the beltway’s

biggest proponents of “staying the course” in Iraq and has been a

vocal proponent of denying homosexuals rights. Surprisingly, when

he gives his opinion on such matters or gets behind a piece of legislation,

no reporter has ever asked why he was

discharged from the army after only ten days in the late 1960s. No one

is asking and he certainly is not telling.For the most part, even in

the age of Bill Clinton and Gary Hart, the “liberal media” has kept

the same tight lipped policies they had when John Kennedy was

President. While the Internet is changing things, for the most part,

the secret sex lives of our politicians remain such unless he or she

does something really stupid, gets arrested, or is trailed by one of

the scandal sheets.

The problem is that this liberal media high road

has been aiding the conservative, anti-homosexual agenda. The media

stayed quiet when Bill Maher outed, on national

television, the head of the Republican National Committee, Ken Melman.

Where were the Woodward and Bernstein-like investigation of how a

neo-con reporter, with a criminal record and host of gay escort websites,

was allowed in the White House press room and given the extensive secret

service checks to even get in there? Every reporter might read the

Drudge Report, but no one is reporting on what is happening in the gay

bars he frequents. Now I could care less what someone does in their

bedroom as long as it does not involve children or animals, but when

you preach this thing called “family values,” whatever that is, you

had better walk the walk, and there better not be swish in your

step. It is called being a hypocrite and more importantly these men

and women’s words and actions inspire hate and violence towards people

who are doing the same horizontal dance they are.

Enter Kirby Dick.

This documentary director not only burns every bridge he sees, but

provides the matches and gasoline, films it, and then holds a press

conference about it. He is fearless. No one is too powerful not to

become the focus of his lens, no nose too prominent to punch. Dick

went from a little known, film festival darling, with films of the

deconstructionist Derrida and profiles on the sadomasochist performance

art of Bob Flanagan, to getting an Academy Award nomination for his movie

to cover up and protect pedophile priests. So after hocking a big one

into the eye of the largest organization in the world, where does someone

who wants to make enemies turn next? How about your own

Association of America (MPAA) and its rating system. The MPAA is

responsible for the G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 ratings and without

their seal of approval most theaters in America will not carry a film.

A muckraking look at that organization is basically a filmmaker

cutting his own throat. So, you have gone after the church, your own

industry, where do you turn next? Why not stick your head in the

lion’s mouth of Washington and maybe out a closeted politician or two

in the process. What would a documentary on closeted politicians be

without Idaho Senator Larry “wide stance” Craig, who was a godsend to

late night comedians and made an airport restroom the most famous spot

in Minneapolis. Barely in Washington two years, as a young

Congressman, he issued a strange public denial that he was not involved

in a sex scandal involving young pages by middle-aged congressman

during the early years of the Reagan administration, a scandal he had

not been previously linked to. But the straight world need not fear,

Craig led the effort to punish more severely Representative Barney

Frank, when a young man he was involved with ran, unknown to the

Congressman, a male prostitution ring out of his home. In 1990, he

moved over to the Senate, becoming one of “The Singing Senators,” went

after “bad boy” Bill Clinton, and was one of the leading proponent’s

of the Federal Marriage Amendment and other legislation that sought to

deny basic rights that everyone else takes for granted to homosexuals.

After his 2007 arrest, the Idaho Statesman newspaper published three

other allegations of Craig’s homosexuality that they had known about

for a long time. Surprisingly, the Idaho Senator claims he is not gay

despite the fact that still more stories of his conduct have come

forth. Then there is Republican Charlie Crist, who succeeded Jeb Bush as

the Governor of Florida, who pushed Florida Amendment 2 which banned

gay marriage in the state. Is the tanned, well groomed Crist a

closeted homosexual? That depends on whether you believe the evidence

Dick puts forward. How about long time Republican California

Congressman David Drier? In 2004, the LA Weekly outed him by

detailing his relationship with his chief of staff Brad W. Smith, who,

surprisingly, was the highest paid Congressional staff member in

Washington. This “open secret” is well documented despite the fact

that Drier supported the Defense of Marriage Act, has fought gay

adoption and hate crime legislation. For the most part the liberal

media has had no comment on his conduct. Whether you believe Crist, Drier, and

others that Dick outs is up to you or whether you believe his

evidence, which contains some pretty damning smoking guns. It is clear

that former Arizona Representative Jim Kolbe and New Jersey Governor

James McGreevey are. These men and their families took time to talk to

Dick about how coming out was a great thing for them. Kolbe, who

supported the Defense of Marriage Act during Clinton’s administration,

in 2000, came out and was even re-elected several times until he decided

to leave the Congress in 2007. He became the second openly

homosexual Republican member of Congress. (Wisconsin’s Steve Gunderson

was the 1st.)

The openly gay Kolbe, several years earlier, had learned of

fellow Congressman Mark Foley’s sexual misconduct with pages and

reported him to the House leadership, which the Republicans did nothing

about, and denied any knowledge about it until years later. Similarly

James McGreevey, who after two years left the governorship when it was

revealed that the man he was having an affair with he had been appointed to

the position of his state’s homeland security advisor. He became the

first openly gay governor in the history of the United States. The real

star of the documentary is McGreevey’s former wife Dina, who speaks

movingly of the pain of being married to a closeted homosexual, of

finding out the most important relationship in your life is based on a

lie. In her words, I find one of the reasons I wish the far right

would stop demonizing homosexuality. How many innocent people like

Dina have married someone with a secret, someone who hates that part of

themself, only to have their lives ripped apart when that person can

no longer live a lie. Is it not better to have homosexuals out in the open,

and happy, than living a life that is not them, and destroying others in

the process. Who is gay? Who is not? For the most part I could care

less. I agree with something my grandfather told me

as a child. The national news was covering a gay rights parade and the

segment cut to a picture of two gay men kissing. He shook his head and

said, “I just don’t understand it.” I looked at him puzzled and asked,

“homosexuality?” Because, as a second grader, I was willing to educate

him on what I knew about. He replied, “No, affection in public.”

What I think he was trying to say, in his Norwegian way, was you leave

me alone and I will leave you alone. It is time the far right,

politicians, and others leave homosexuals alone. Let them get married.

Let them be happy. So, until then I am glad someone like Kirby Dick is

around.

Verdict: A Very Interesting Documentary