Effect Measure

Political opponent accused of being secretly straight

Posted by revere on April 24, 2010
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I know things are better when I read really weird stories like this one:

Earlier today, we told you about a Pennsylvania legislator who accused her primary opponent of pretending to be bisexual in order to get votes from the large LGBT community in her Philadelphia district.

At a fundraiser a week ago, state Rep. Babette Josephs (D) told supporters that they couldn’t trust her opponent, Gregg Kravitz, not to cheat at the polls. He had lied before, she said.

“I outed him as a straight person,” she said, “and now he goes around telling people, quote, ‘I swing both ways.’” (Rachel Slajda, TPM)

Yes, that’s right. A politician is accusing her opponent of being secretly straight. I don’t know (or care) if Mr. Kravitz is telling the truth about his sexual likes and dislikes. Whether it’s a lie or the truth is less interesting than it would be seen to be an advantage in any political constituency, much less one in Pennsylvania, to maintain you are bisexual.

My generation (the over sixty crowd) is the least enlightened about these matters and when we die off those left will wonder what the gay marriage fuss was about. My children, who are in their 30s, don’t get it at all and neither do their friends, some of whom are anything but politically liberal. The Far Right may make a lot of noise about gay marriage as a threat to the family, but that battle is essentially over and this news story is just one of the straws in the wind.

If right wing whack jobs were really serious about threats to the “traditional family” they would go after the biggest threat of all, legal divorce. They don’t dare do that because half of them are themselves divorced. But they aren’t serious about threats to marriage when it’s their marriage that’s involved. They want to keep the privilege of having an exit from a loveless marriage. Having that exit is a good thing and they know it, even if they publicly cluck about it.

At the same, of course, they want to prevent others from entering into a loving one. But things are getting better. Ask Representative Josephs. After she extracts her foot from her mouth.

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Comments

  1. #1 caia
    April 24, 2010

    I guess it’s good in the way you say.

    OTOH, it’s yet another example of people being dismissed when they say they’re bisexual, particularly if they’re in a monogamous relationship. I for one hope Kravitz is being honest, because biphobia is real and pressure to “pick a side” strong, even (especially?) in the gay and lesbian community. Openly bisexual public figures are good for combatting such prejudices.

  2. #2 Hand Gel G
    April 24, 2010

    Politics appeals to some very strange people; and I’m not even going to get close to any comment on anyone’s sexuality.

  3. #3 Cate
    April 24, 2010

    And these right wringers keep claiming they want government out of our lives!??

    I sometimes try to understand what the right wringers really want or need. It is the only time I get a headache.

    They are obsessed with the oddest of things: dermal pigmentation and eye color, what people do with their genitals, apocalyptic rapture fantasies, projectiles of all sorts (38s to howitzers), the irrational wrath of a vague father figurish icon, the dire necessity of spanking children, uteri but not testes, exceptualism, corporate rights but not ethics, lockdowns — oh how they love that word!, hatred toward anything named ‘community’ or ‘social’ . . . .

    It makes you wonder . . . or, at least, it makes me wonder. But then headache starts, so I quit.

  4. #4 M. Randolph Kruger
    April 24, 2010

    I guess you never married Ms. R. did you? It was because it was the thing to do I guess. Like it or not Revere, we are a Judeo-Christian nation and with that goes the requisites. Is it just a slap at the right to call them right wing whack jobs when they stand for something, something that has been handed down for generation to generation?

    Only in the last half of this past century did we get “enlightened ” by the Immoral Left. Those that stand for only destruction of the systems we have had in place for well over 200 years in this country and look at the mess its in. Libs against conservatives, right against left, progressives (now there is a conundrum) and now we have the tea baggers.

    These people while still within the law will not be if things do not change. They will use the system right up until the time it doesnt work. They are tired of all of the rhetoric, the spending, the gays, the elected criminals, the guy who may or may not be a citizen thats President and the suggestion that it was Bush who screwd up everything.

    Granted , there are bad folks on both sides and resorting to gay-lez, homo issues to garner support is flat wrong. It doesnt fix the country. I just cant understand how e got into a country situation where we are spending more time training so we dont offend women, lezbians, homosexuals, their civil rights and whatever other rule books that the government can come up with. I have a REAL issue with people who say they are BLACK Americans, and WHITE Americans. Shit, the only ones who have it right are the American INDIANS. Its all wrapped up in this politically correct bullshit and they use it as ammo on each other. Who really gave a crap whether Massa was a closet fairy? I just didnt want him to vote for Obamanation.

    Be open about your bisexualness folks or gayness and then quit wearing it on your shoulder like all of these people who open it up with “I am a XXX American.” You are an American first and a XXX second. Dont complain either when a group gets in your shit because you are either. Why? Because we have Revere calling us whackjobs because we dont agree with a gay lifestyle or anything that goes against the teachings of God, the Bible, the basic tenets of the Constitution which is what this country was founded on. The first two to Revere of course are non-existent. But it got him onto the boat and to this point. And NO, I do think he is a GREAT American because he sticks up for what he believes in and not for generally political reasons. I think the delivery stinks a lot of the time because of all of these supposedly enlightened people who have achieved super status because of their sexual, non religious, color etc.

    When the day comes that these folks call themselves Americans first, and the chip on their shoulder isnt there then they will likely be happy with the skin they are in. Until then, I guess they will just be unhappy. Just like the conservatives are unhappy with this Administration. Something is going to give and they had better hope its the elective process that will change it.

  5. #5 revere
    April 24, 2010

    Randy: No one could accuse you of spending even a second worrying about offending someone. That aside, why isn’t it a right wing theme to make divorce illegal if the sanctity of marriage is such a big deal? There’s plenty in the Judeo-Christian Bible about incest and polygamy, so I don’t think the Blue Noses got it from there. And some of us consider ourselves human beings, first, not Americans first. I am an American by an accident of birth and so are you. If you had been born in Germany or Italy, then you would think that was the greatest thing in the world. I’m a social libertarian. Keep you nose out of my business and I’ll keep mine out of yours. Meanwhile this is no longer a Judeo-Christian nation. That’s over with. Let’s move on.

  6. #6 Cate
    April 24, 2010

    Randolph: You poor thing: you are soooo tired of gays, un-subservient women, minorities, bible non-believers, the sick, the poor, and bilinguals who muck up your white male dream. Jesus would be horrified if he met y’all right wing Christians — he preached against your hatred and intolerance.

    We are all equal on this earth. You merit no exceptionalism, no matter how desperately your ego-centrism craves it. You have no additional rights, no matter how many guns you have to kill off those you hate. You were supposed to learn in the Kindergarten that you do not own the sandbox. Grow up.

  7. #7 Arancaytar Ilyaran
    April 25, 2010

    ‘If right wing whack jobs were really serious about threats to the “traditional family” they would go after the biggest threat of all, legal divorce. They don’t dare do that because half of them are themselves divorced.’

    Well, among the right wing whack jobs who clamor against gay marriage the loudest are several people who have turned out to be less than straight, themselves. Self-hate and hypocrisy can go a long away in conservatism.

  8. #8 Cate
    April 25, 2010

    Con-Servatism. Definition: Politicians who vote against serving the needs of their constituents when they can serve themselves. Constituents who want their government benefits and eschew them too.

  9. #9 M. Randolph Kruger
    April 25, 2010

    Oh, and by the way and for the record. I live in the United States of America which I think that the current Administration is doing its dead level best to tear down. If this doesnt turn when over 69% of the electorate said stop the bullshit then it wont matter if you are gay, black, white, hetero/homo, or one of the enlightened left. This would be the same left that spent 7.9 trillion dollars in just 18 months and for what?

    Secession is in the wind and actually its a crap load cheaper than riding the Titanic down.

    You of course can disagree but when that many people get fired up the fastest way to fire up the rest of them is to cut the welfare that everyone else is paying for. 1/2 of America doesnt pay income taxes…Anyone want my tax bill this year? Even in a down year its killing me and I had to cut my employees to part time to pay for it. It will get worse.

    The differences between the conservatives, Tea Baggers, Christians and people of faith is that we are being persecuted because we represent something that goes back a lot farther than “liberalism” and the views held by libs. Its all well and good but it does go back to the Bible (O horror, he used the B word) and it says that I am not my brothers keeper…So healthcare is WHAT? What is Welfare? Government taking from someone and giving it to another because their condition is so bad. Well this isnt going to last very long from sheer economics, and Revere can say to hell with the Bible.

    Stick to empirica information if you cant find God I guess. As far as offending people, I dont generally start off a conversation calling them a whack job. Down south with our guns and religion they would get an education in etiquette, or pure respect.

  10. #10 revere
    April 25, 2010

    Randy: You can secede any time you want. In words you folks used against us in days of yore, “Love it or leave it.” And if you are going to invoke the Bible, it’s best you get it right (although you probably never read it, so how could you?). It doesn’t say in the Bible we are not our brother’s keeper. Cain (who off’ed his brother Abel) ASKS, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” No. He was his brother’s murderer. The Bible is full of incest and polygamy, so I guess that’s all right by your standards? And as for taking money from people for things they don’t agree with, how about giving me back all the dough you guys sent down the rat holes of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Grenada and Panama and illegal activities in Central America?

    You poor, poor persecuted right wingers. All you have are the newspapers, the corporations, the military might, the courts, lots of state legislatures and, of course, your beloved phallic guns. Goes with your religion I guess.

    And stop driving on highways I paid for and using air control I paid for and, no doubt, yo’ll use Medicare I paid for when you get old enough. And your socialistic veteran’s benefits I paid for. You are also a socialist. you want to socializes corporation losses. You just want the profits to be entirely private. And why did you cut your workers’ hours? Nothing has changed yet and taxes are lower than during your Beloved Reagan years. You cut their hours out of spite, it sounds like, since you aren’t paying any more now, this instant, unless you are pretty wealthy.In which case you don’t sound too persecuted. How are you,personally, persecuted? What can’t you do you want to do because you are white and priviliged and male and Christian? I know a lot of people that don’t fit that description who would like to be as persecuted as you are. Poor, poor, so wealthy his taxes went up, Randy. You poor dear.