Saturday, September 01, 2007
Passion/Compassion
By now Sen. Larry Craig must have announced his resignation. What a hellish education he's received this week. The party to which he's given his allegiance for his entire career has tossed him ought like so much rotten fruit. (Puns be damned!) The gay blogosphere has had lots of jokes at his expense. He's persona non grata wherever he goes.I'm not terribly proud of my own contributions to kicking him when he's down, but in examining what is my usually very tender heart I've bumped into some undeniable baggage. This man and his former colleagues have contributed immeasurably to the vilification and demonization of a lot of very good people. We've paid a very high price to live according to our passions, our collective sense of authenticity.
In the culture war waged too successfully by the Christian Right and their governmental lackeys in the last decade, gays and lesbians have been portrayed as the very sort of people that, well, Larry Craig behaved as. Frankly, lots of us are much too wholesome to head for the bathroom in search of touch.
Even if Larry Craig is innocent of the charges against him, he knows now the tactics that police will use to elicit confessions both true and false. He knows the indignity that many before him have suffered. Let him read about the Stonewall riots and the lifetime of police jailings and beatings that led up to them.
Since any gay activity that Craig has experienced may be limited to the impersonal or professional, what he doesn't know are all the gay and lesbian people who have responsibly cared for children and ailing parents, all the while being told that their way of life didn't support and perpetuate the family. He hasn't taken the time to know people who live very much in the family spirit, as parents, siblings, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, who take the time and energy to stay close to those they love... or to create new families when rejected by the family of origin, because the need for the continuity and love is so compelling.
Craig doesn't know the pain of being denied access to an ailing partner because the law didn't recognize the union. He hasn't experienced the loss of both person and property as so-called "legal" relatives moved in on the person they'd rejected years ago to the exclusion of the partner. He has never had to recognize his privilege, as most people of privilege are loath to do.
Perhaps Larry Craig will come to understand the revulsion that comes from society to take its place in the dark, self-abnegating pit of the soul. That internalized hatred takes years to wash from many a spirit, and can only happen for most of us when our spirits can breathe free in the sun. Very little of what straight bigots says about us exists in fact, but it's hard to shake all the negativity loose. Our careers, too, sit on the line that Larry Craig so recently crossed.
Bob Dylan has sung, "When you've got nothin', you've got nothin' to lose. You're invisible now; you've got no secrets to conceal."
Larry Craig, may your education begin. You've paid dearly for it.
# posted by Lulu Maude @ 11:24 AM 
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Great post Ms. Lulu.
Larry Craig had a fabulous life, now he may be getting a feel for what he's been putting on other people. His Christian friends in the GOP have given him the bum's rush. Next he'll be asking for donations to see him through like Ted Haggert, another washed-up Pharisee.
Larry Craig had a fabulous life, now he may be getting a feel for what he's been putting on other people. His Christian friends in the GOP have given him the bum's rush. Next he'll be asking for donations to see him through like Ted Haggert, another washed-up Pharisee.
Lulu, I think you were charitable toward this sniveling closet queen far beyond the call of civility.
He remains in deep denial- he is wholly unrepentant, defiant, even.
Despite his "apologies" and "humility," he's still blatantly distancing himself from the rumors that have dogged him for 25 years.
He's queer.
He's using his wife and family as camoflauge.
He's not just a closeted gay man- he's a pervert who's filthy toilet adventures with strangers might be exposing his wife to any number of venereal diseases, HIV and hepatitis.
He deserves no sympathy until he gets right with who he is and what he's truly about.
And his intolerant GOP colleagues didn't throw him under the bus, they hit him with the bus.
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He remains in deep denial- he is wholly unrepentant, defiant, even.
Despite his "apologies" and "humility," he's still blatantly distancing himself from the rumors that have dogged him for 25 years.
He's queer.
He's using his wife and family as camoflauge.
He's not just a closeted gay man- he's a pervert who's filthy toilet adventures with strangers might be exposing his wife to any number of venereal diseases, HIV and hepatitis.
He deserves no sympathy until he gets right with who he is and what he's truly about.
And his intolerant GOP colleagues didn't throw him under the bus, they hit him with the bus.
# posted by 
: 12:10 PM
: 12:10 PM << Home
