GQ Magazine inks major spread on gay Republicans;

3/17/2005
GQ Magazine inks major spread on gay Republicans; Bush official denies RNC chief Mehlman is gay, contradicting earlier reports
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Magazine covers outings; Official denies Mehlman is gay

By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=189

GQ Magazine details the outing campaign of gay blogger Mike Rogers (also editor of RawStoryQ) in a 3,100 word spread in this month’s issue, now on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles, RAW STORY has learned.

The piece, which includes a first-ever denial that the chairman of the Republican National Committee Ken Mehlman is gay–a fact contested by many reporters and others close to the Mehlman himself–is sure to spark a new firestorm of debate over whether outing those who oppose gay civil rights is appropriate.

Included in the piece are fresh new hints about Rogers’ future outing campaigns, such as a senator who had an indiscreet encounter in a Union Station men’s room. These are also accompanied by a fresh attack on Rogers’ approach.

“Ken Mehlman is not gay,” Steve Schmidt, a senior official of the Bush campaign and a friend of Mehlman’s told Jake Tapper, an ABC News correspondent who wrote the piece for the magazine. Schmidt who refers to Rogers as a “bottom dweller.”

Mehlman has not responded to previous requests for comment on his sexuality from any publication.

RAW STORY previously reported that during the Republican National Convention in New York, Schmidt intimidated two New York newspapers from printing a story questioning Mehlman’s sexuality. Schmidt also allegedly called the sources that had spoken to Mike Rogers, who had been ready to go on the record about their experiences with the then-Bush-Cheney campaign manager. Mehlman was also outed by a progressive radio talk show host late last year.

AmericaBLOG’s John Aravosis, who is gay and publicly questioned whether Mehlman might be gay last year, said he was surprised a Bush campaign official would deny Mehlman was gay.

“If he’s now heterosexual, I’d like to know why he’s single at 38,” Aravosis told RAW STORY. “Because we’ve heard nothing about girlfriends, we’ve heard nothing about marriage, we’ve heard nothing about nothing–and he’s bashing [us] about gay marriage? Because he doesn’t seem like much of a defender of marriage himself.”

Rogers finds Mehlman’s attack on gay marriage ludicrous.

“How can we amend the constitution to protect marriage from single, heterosexual men like Ken Mehlman who decide never to marry?” he remarked to RAW STORY Thursday. “Isn’t Ken Mehlman as much a threat to heterosexual marriage as I am?

“With all those eligible, beautiful Republican activist women at his beck and call,” he added, “you would think one would have been handsome enough for that Harvard-education, handsome lawyer.”

Republicans in Congress appear as ghosts in the piece saying they won’t fire staffers who are outed as gay. Rogers began his campaign outing some staff members of prominent congressmen who voted against gay rights.

“One person related to me a story of Republican congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois joking that if he ever ran into Rogers, he’d punch him in the nose,” Tapper writes. “Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina reportedly told her staff they had nothing to worry about, should any of them be outed. With the exception of Senator Inhofe parsing between his personal and committee staffs, no one has said anything to distance himself or herself from a gay staffer Rogers has targeted.”

Inhofe, senator from Oklahoma, has said he would hire gays for his committee staff in Washington but not at his district office.

Barney Frank, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, comes to Rogers defense. Frank is one of three openly gay members of Congress.

“There still is this official doctrine that we’re immoral,” Frank told Tapper for the piece. “But the Republican attitude is that they have now moved to the point where they accept the fact that you’re gay as long as you act somewhat embarrassed about it.”

One staffer tells Tapper a fact known inside the beltway but not widely reported–that some members of Congress posture as being more anti-gay than they actually are to please constituents.

“We’re a representative democracy,” the staffer told GQ. “And while members may not have personal problems with having gay staff, they vote the way their constituents want them to.”

Tapper also interviews Daniel Gurley, former National Field Director for the Republican National Committee, who acknowledged to RAW STORY and Rogers that he was gay in a phone interview last year. Gurley blames liberals

for a mailer he sent to Southern states that said liberals would ban the bible and allow gay marriage.

“I would rather it not have been done,” Gurley told GQ. “But if the left had pursued civil unions as a positive affirmation of legitimate gay relations as opposed to calling it marriage, it’s highly unlikely a mailing like that would have existed.”

A gay staffer also weighed jocularly into the article, saying that the number of gay Republicans in Congress is not small.

“There’s clearly a gay Republican maﬁa,” one gay staffer whom Rogers has targeted told Tapper. “There’s one in every office.”
63 Comments »

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1.

Gay Republicans?

You gotta be kidding.

Comment by refresh — 3/17/2005 @ 7:27 pm
2.

This is amazing. A political party that has seized power pandering to hate, homophobia, and bigotry targeted at the most hompobic and bigoted group in America. And by that I mean CEEEEEERISTIANS in the red states. Yet from all apperances, the guiding elements of this conglomeration of political whores ARE GAY! AMAZING! Irony is very, very dead.

Comment by david palmer — 3/17/2005 @ 7:31 pm

3.

Republican hypocrites?

Again, you gotta be kidding.

Comment by refresh — 3/17/2005 @ 7:33 pm
4.

Well, with the GQ article poised to make a whole lotta Republicans really, really unhappy, let the outings begin. The sooner, the better.

And fer Dobbs’ sake, we have to see to it that Democrats rub every eeeeevangelical-coddling, working-family-hating, closet-bigot Republican hypocrite’s nose in the Santorum that results.

Comment by Instapummel — 3/17/2005 @ 8:08 pm
5.

Yes, OUT them! The Democrats, as spineless as ever, will shy away from this, but they need to CHARGE and go after the gays.

Let’s be honest: The Gay marriage issue is stupid. Nobody really cares, but liberals get all hyped up about it because CONSERVATIVES are constantly bringing it up. How do you think they are so good at keeping this on the front burner? They are GAY themselves.

Democrats need to DRAG (pun intended) these homos out into the open and MOCK them for what they are. They can’t lose. What are the gays going to do about it?

I know a lot of gay men, and they are my friends, but I don’t give them a break for being gay. I harrass those friends as much as my straight friends, sometimes more. And you know what? Most gay men I know VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Don’t be fooled by pansy Queer guys on TV. Most gay men I know are tough, buff, very successful financially, and Republican. They don’t care about gay marriage. They get around and are proud of it.

Imagine a world in which women thought the same way you did about sex and were eager to sleep with you upon first sight, just like you would with them upon first sight.

That’s the gay world of men. They have it made. Heck, sometimes I wish I were gay. But I’m not. So I have to work for it, damnit!

Anyway, it’s the lesbians who are for gay marriage. They are the most ironic of all. They are lesbians but believe in monogamy. What kind of twisted logic is that?

Out them all. The more photos the better.

I think Mehlman is a raging pillow biter. I bet, for sure, he’s the catcher.

Comment by Pudintane — 3/17/2005 @ 8:56 pm
6.

Oh, and I don’t think Bush is gay. But I think Rove, McClellan and (as mentioned) Mehlman are. That’s my opinion, of course.

I also think Barry Bonds is gay. I don’t know why, but it’s a hunch.

But Bush does not seem gay. No way. He likes the women. Clinton definitely liked the women (the big ones). Gray Davis seems gay, and I heard rumors about Arnold. Ron Reagan, Jr. seems a little gay. Hard to say.

But I’m glad this is finally coming out, because we KNOW someone in the upper ranks brought Gannon into it.

Come out, come out, whoever you are.

Comment by Pudintane — 3/17/2005 @ 9:00 pm
7.

That’s funny….. very funny. Pudintane your so crazy I believe you.

Comment by realitythinks — 3/17/2005 @ 9:17 pm
8.

Bush says “fabulous” way to much for an alleged straight guy.

Comment by c. — 3/17/2005 @ 9:36 pm
9.

Just want to say I really like this site….and I have just realized that some of my favorite political sites are from gays….antiwar.com, rawstory.com, americablog.com, andrewsullivan.com….I’m straight but you guys keep it up OK?

The only way to move the dialectical dialogue on gays in a constructive way is to out the closet republicans in the seat of power…..everyone needs to smell the hypocricy all at the same time before things change!!!

Comment by BluePearl — 3/17/2005 @ 9:36 pm
10.

Bush isn’t gay? What?

Bush Tells Canadian Prime Minister’s Scott that He has a Prettier Face Than Bush’s Scott: We Are Not Making This Up!

The President chuckled. “Well, you got a pretty face,” he told the surprised Mr. Reid. He wasn’t done. “You got a pretty face,” he said again. “You’re a good-looking guy. Better looking than my Scott anyway.”

Comment by Anonymous — 3/17/2005 @ 9:45 pm
11.

All of these “outings” will do little to help the liberal cause. Most conservatives/Republicans are not as bigoted as you think, and will only see this Left-wing obsession with sexual orientation as hypocritical. I am a conservative and could care less whether or not Mehlman, Rove, etc. are gay. People are people, and my primary political concerns are with elected officials’ stances on the issues and their capacities for leadership. Their sexual orientations are none of my business. Lest my logic sound contradictory, I should add that I am among the many conservatives who have federalist/libertarian leanings and are thus opposed to a Federal Marriage Amendment.

Comment by Right Wing Extremist — 3/17/2005 @ 9:52 pm
12.

Ron Reagan, Jr. may be gay, but he’s not Republican (despite his famous father). He does nothing but defend gay rights and gay marriage on his show.

Comment by anon — 3/17/2005 @ 9:58 pm
13.

Good! Out all the hypocrites a la Mehlman, Gannonguckert, and the whole vitriloic gay-bashing lot of them who in their oily play to court the Christian fundamentalists are moral prostitutes. As for the President & those spineless Republican Senators & Congresspeople on the Hill who hold their tongues in public and cater to and go along with the religious right hate-spewing cretins while having gay staffers closeted away in their offices, I can only say their moral bankruptcy and lack of courage only adds to today’s sorry climate of intolerance. In short, their lack of courage can only garner them disdain from most Americans who are more laissez-faire in their attitudes towards homosexuality. The natural world abounds with homsexuality–penguins, chimps, bonobos, elephants–humans are not unique in this respect. Violence, exploitation, cruelty, predatory behavior, injustice–those are the true pornographic things in life. They may be sexual, they may be economic. Corrupt power over others is what any right-minded person finds repungnent and abhorrent. It’s what this whole administratrion reeks of. In theory, this should be a nation of equals where people should treat each other with common decency, compassion and respect. It’s not. I reject the hypocricy, the hate-filled spewing of hell and brimestone directed against any group and I also have a low opinion for those in governmnet who don’t stand up and declare flat out and up front that sexual preference is not a thing to be legislated against. Their lack of courage and candor only encourages the irrational haters to hate even more.

Comment by Julie Penny — 3/17/2005 @ 10:15 pm
14.

I don’t know if bush is gay. I think he just has sex with men as a power thing.

Comment by Anonymous — 3/17/2005 @ 10:22 pm
15.

Talking point : A gay whore has penetrated the white house.

Comment by 50 caliber liberal — 3/17/2005 @ 10:42 pm
16.

Out them, Out them, Out them ALL! The sooner and more visibly, the better.

Will it change much? I seriously doubt it. But hypocrites deserve to have their hypocrisy exposed – especially when they are using it to oppress other people who are more honest and have more integrity. There is no limit to the depths of Republican sleaze.

Comment by attaboy — 3/17/2005 @ 11:48 pm
17.

You know who might be interesting to talk with these days? The owners of bath houses. I can’t say I’ve been to a lot of them, but at least at the one I’ve visited in Chicago, the staff reviews your identification, and you have to “sign in.”

You might think some of these politicos are too smart to risk it all by frequenting such establishments. That’s what I would have thought, too, until I met a staff member (Chief of Staff) who works for a Republican Congressman there one evening.

I could never forget this guy. He was probably the kinkiest man I’ve ever been with. He seemed to want everything up his ass.

And that’s not the only reason Freud would have had a field day with him. He gave me his real name and number – as though he wanted to be “discovered.” Of course, I Googled him when I returned home – and found out his occupation. I guess that explained the Blackberry he kept looking at while we were playing.

I suppose bath house owners would have an interest in keeping their records private. But – this is war! I bet some of them could be persuaded to loosen up the access to their documents somewhat. Maybe we should take a collection to reward them for their part in exposing Republican hypocrites….

If any of you are close to people who own or work at bath houses, you ought to supply them a list of names for which they should be looking.

Comment by gaymafioso — 3/18/2005 @ 12:00 am
18.

My fellow Progressives,
You do not make a good impression on potential recruits to the Progressive movement with your poor English, spelling, and punctuation. (Yes, the last comma belongs there.) Please learn the differences among (not between) “to", “two", and “too". (No, I refuse to put the period inside the quote mark.) Please keep “who” and “whom” sorted out. Please learn the difference between “site” and “cite". Please don’t type in all lower case. The neocons may think that you are illiterate.

Comment by comet — 3/18/2005 @ 12:56 am
19.

# 13 – Paragraphs, please.

Comment by CitizenUSA — 3/18/2005 @ 1:09 am
20.

A paragraph must comprise more than one sentence. (Yes, a paragraph comprises sentences. Sentences do not comprise a paragraph.)

Comment by comet — 3/18/2005 @ 1:27 am
21.

“…you will know them by their fruit…”

Bush is a closet gayblade pseudo-warrior and Laura is nothing but an enabling door mat…the daughters are alcoholics…the father was involved with covering up the JFK assassination and the Savings and Loan scandals, etc…and the grandfather, Prescott, financed the Nazis and, subsequently, his Riggs bank laundered money for the dictator Pinochet and God knows who else…and his dyplastic seed is running this country! Now open