Is He Also An Animal Lover?
Center City race has candidate outed as straight | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/22/2010.
At this very moment, Senator Lindsey Graham is being challenged to come out of the closet and admit like pop singer Ricky Martin, that he is a “fortunate homosexual man”. If the events described in the linked article are any indication, Graham needn’t worry. If anything, his admission, if he has one, will probably make him more popular than by keeping his lifestyle a secret.
Or perhaps that’s just the case if you happen to live in Philadelphia where this “Onionesque” set of circumstances is developing. According to this article,
“…Veteran Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) last Thursday accused her primary opponent, Gregg Kravitz, of pretending to be bisexual in order to pander to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters, a powerful bloc in the district. “I outed him as a straight person,” Josephs said during a fund-raiser at the Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant…”
To which the candidate in question responded, ” I swing both ways”, in order not to totally disenfranchise the straight vote. Well, this IS the city of brotherly love. As for me, I vote him politician of the year if not just the winner for Philly. It may be amusing to have this guy in office if only for the comedy of his tenure. You know he will be inclusive. Gays, straights, bi’s, all will have equal representation in his government. If you think about it, it’s a cost savings.
In our part of the world, Vancouver, it’s not uncommon for politicians to pander to ethnic votes by donning ritualistic headgear when attending cultural events. The Americans put us to shame as far as pandering since it appears that their politicians will adopt a whole sexual persona to get votes. The wearing of turbans in Sikh parades or cowboy hats at western events here are pretty lame in comparison to the lengths pursued by American politicians to get elected. Maybe it’s just pragmatism, after all if you think about it, everywhere you look, gay is the way. Being gay is so mainstream, even Archie comics are rumored to be introducing its first gay character. Society has jumped from merely accepting the gay lifestyle to now requiring that as the ticket to entry.
I’m unsure of why having that particular proclivity enriches anyone with any more ability to make political, economic and especially national security decisions than their sexually more boring counterparts. You can see where all this is leading. There are certain professions which are famously populated by gay people if only by reputation; florists, hairdressers, ice-dancers etc. This actually puts pressure on these people. If their work seems not up to snuff, they’d better be prepared for accusations of straightness and some proof of their gayness.
You know it’s only a matter of time before all kinds of subsets of society put forth candidates that mirror their particular group as if that were a good measure of ability. Soon we’ll see left handed candidates, red headed candidates, fat candidates, candidates that sing, people with walleye or perhaps people who have IQ’s lower than some arbitrary amount. Oh wait, we have that already.