When we watch the news and hear outlandish and false statements about LGBTQ people and our "agenda" go unchallenged we worry that the misinformation will eventually be seen as "the truth."Unfortunately, as occasional victims of these lies, we are left to scream helplessly at the television, demanding for a correction or an apology -- which never comes.
Today we want to address a particularly annoying lie that keeps recycling throughout debates over the Larry Craig debacle.
As you are no doubt aware, Senator Larry Craig’s tearoom tap dance is all-the-buzz lately on every TV news/talk show.
Pundits and talking heads – most of them straight (at least publicly) males – are pontificating on the inescapable reality that the GOP is riddled with gay bashing hypocrites.
Last week, on one particular segment of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, he and Republican strategist, Pat Buchanan spent about 15 minutes agonizing over the potential negative impact Craig’s sordid tale would have on the Republican’s chances of winning the 2008 Presidential election.
During their exchange, Matthews stated (and has since repeated) that it irks him to see self-hating gay bigots like Craig pushing for laws like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the Constitutional Amendment to ban equal marriage rights.
Matthews is especially fired up over DADT, which he believes is a “legitimate” concern for “patriotic” LGBTQ Americans who want to serve their country (and implicit in his insistence that arguments against DADT are legitimate, is Matthews’ opinion that demands for marriage equality rights are not valid).
During a Hardball ‘debate’ the other night, Matthews went head-to-head with Pat Buchanan over the Larry Craig fiasco.
And during this debate, the validity of DADT and marriage equality were discussed.
Matthews reiterated his views on DADT and Buchanan countered that the policy is a logical solution because it protects unsuspecting and vulnerable straight soldiers from being molested by gays as they sleep in their barracks. (What a bunch of hooey!)
When the dueling conservatives got around to discussing marriage, blow-hard Buchanan bellowed that advocates for equal marriage rights are trying to force him to accept our marriages as legitimate – and that would be unfair to him:
“You‘re—but see, the two homosexuals would be asking their—they‘re imposing something on me. They‘re saying, you must recognize my—our relationship as marriage. And I say, look, my values say no. I mean, if you‘re living in Dupont Circle, that‘s your business.”
As usual and until now, Buchanan’s absurd statement went unchallenged.
We will now offer the response we can only dream of hearing on the air some day:
- First, that kind of insulting and conceited statement just infuriates us!
- Second, just how would our marriage be in any way an imposition on Pat Buchanan -- or anyone else besides us for that matter?
- Third, assuming that Pat Buchanan is a married man, we are not in the slightest bit burdened by his marriage. Despite knowing that somewhere lurks the specter of Buchanan’s marriage, we go on about our daily lives as if it does not exist at all.
The only problem we have with Buchanan’s marriage is that although we are American citizens and we pay taxes that support programs that are available to Buchanan and his wife, we are not able to enjoy the same rights and privileges granted by those programs.
Want to know what is really unfair? That WE are the ones forced to accept Buchanan’s marriage while being denied the right to our own!
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