Why Do GOP Closet Cases Suck?

Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! at 5:34 AM on November 5, 2007.

This post, written by Howie Klein, originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!

You may have noticed that there haven't been any moderate Republicans dragged kicking and screaming out of the closet lately and that all the Republican closet queens who have been outed are far right extremists. Everyone has a clear homophobic, bigoted voting record. Not one was sympathetic or even politically empathetic towards other gay people. Today's Seattle Times looks into what makes these men tick. The topic is a hot one in Washington because of the statewide, and even national, lurid headlines involving a local right-wing representative, Richard Curtis (R), a cross-dresser who reneged on a deal to pay a male prostitute $1,000 for unprotected anal sex.

Curtis was high on drugs all night, having sex with multiple partners in a sleazy porno establishment, and then capping it off with a liaison in his hotel with young Cody Castagna. He didn't have the full thousand to pay Castagna and was too out of it from all the drugs he had consumed to go to an ATM so he gave him a few hundred and said he could hold his wallet as collateral 'til the following day. Then, still too doped up to understand the consequences of his actions, he called a GOP political crony involved with law enforcement and told him he didn't want to press charges but wanted him to get the wallet back without involving the Spokane cops. The GOP crony wasn't on drugs and within hours Curtis' life was forever changed. The Times wants to understand how this could happen, how could politicians take such risks?

When Larry Craig (R) was arrested in a public toilet in Minneapolis-- and then pled guilty-- for soliciting sex from another male he was painfully aware he was under investigation for... having sex with a male in a public toilet in Washington's Union Station. Did he think that changing his hunting ground from railroad station restrooms to airport restrooms he was being cautious?

When Republican Congressman Mark Foley's life came tumbling down around his ears last year, he had led a half in/half out of the closet existence that was fraught with more and more risk every year as he felt surer and surer of his ability to transcend social (and right wing) mores. He was often seen being escorted around South Florida and DC in the company of handsome young men. He had been warned several times to stop paying so much attention to the underage male congressional pages. And then, drunk, he was caught trying to break into their dorm after midnight. But nothing happened. The risky behavior apparently had no risk. He was protected by other powerful closeted Republicans (Speaker Denny Hastert) and by powermad GOP leaders who didn't care if he raped a page a day as long as they could keep the seat red. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), John Shimkus (R-IL) and John Boehner (R-OH) were the culprits in that category.

Other Republicans are flirting with the same kinds of risks, especially David Dreier (CA), Patrick McHenry (NC) and Lindsey Graham (SC). "Why would any politician take such risks?" ask the Times

For the answer to that, start with the notion that people who go into politics are more likely than others to be risk-takers, say experts in the field. To a large extent, they're people who are comfortable inviting scrutiny because that's what politicians do to get elected.

"Politics tends to attract risk-takers," says Frank Farley, a Temple University psychologist who has studied risk-taking, politics and human motivation. "It's an uncertain job, you live at the whim of the electorate, there's no tenure. It's often short-term-- you're in for two or four years, and you're out. Then you have to start all over again in some field."

Often, successful politicians got there largely because of that personal chutzpah, a risk-taking predilection honed and encouraged by success. For those who come from modest circumstances or small towns, risk-taking is often the only ticket out, as it was for Bill Clinton, who fueled his brainpower with nerve to overcome a childhood broken home and financial hardship.

"Often one of the ways to get ahead is to take risks, be bold; if you don't, the world is going to pass you by, because you don't have anything besides your psychology-- no wealth, you're not a Bush, not born into money," Farley says.

Such risk-takers are likely more prone to do things others consider unsafe, says Gladue. "It's not that they're brain-damaged and they can't evaluate the dangers; they just have a higher threshold for risk than most people. ... [To them] it's not risky."

Everyone finds a level of risk they're comfortable with, Gladue says. They'll hike but not climb. Or they'll climb Mount Rainier, but only in the summer. Or they'll climb Mount Rainier in all seasons, but not Mount Everest.

Some people just keep "pushing the limits," Gladue says. "Everybody knows somebody like that. You just don't want to be in a car with them, because they're not managing risk as well as you'd like them to be."

There's plenty of research indicating that such sensation-seeking personalities are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior as well, Gladue says. "This is part of who they are. Their temperament gets a little watered down as they get older, but it doesn't go away."

Some evolutionary biologists have argued that politicians, as the modern-day equivalent of the "alpha male" gorilla, are even more tempted than others by the lure of sexual conquests, almost as a right of office. After all, they say, in nature it's the alpha male who gets the sexual access.

Of course, these days such "evolutionary" urges are generally tempered by pragmatism, they add. For some people, hiding an inner life that's in direct conflict with an outer life becomes intolerable, says Farley. "You want to bring some alignment, some freedom, from that continual, conflictual stress."

At some point, the pain of the conflict itself may become a powerful motivator to resolve the differences, Farley says.

McGreevey, in his tell-all book, "The Confession," wrote that "the closet starves a man and when he gets a chance, he gorges 'til it sickens him."

Curtis, like many who have found themselves in this situation, has a wife and children. He ran for office as a conservative Republican.

Farley says that, too, is understandable.

"You're creating a cover for your behavior so you're beyond reproach. You figure you will get away with what you're doing; you've covered it with those strong positions, so nobody thinks of you as gay."

There you find the genesis of the rabid gay hysteria, coupled with utter denial and self-loathing, from Republican closet cases like Larry Craig (ID), Bob Allen (FL), Mitch McConnell (KY), Mark Foley (FL), Patrick McHenry (NC), Richard Curtis (WA), Joey DiFatta (LA), Lindsey Graham (SC), Adrian Smith (NE), David Dreier (CA), Ed Schrock (VA), Jim McCrery (LA) and countless others.


UPDATE: OH... AND ABOUT RIGHT-WING PREACHERS... SAME TRIP

And another one was just exposed, Marshall Seymour of Baptist Church at the Mall in Lakeland, Florida who likes the underage Christian boys a little too much. He was paying church boys as young as 15 for sex-- just like he used to do in Alabama.

I can't even keep up with the news of Republican politicians engaging in this risky behavior. Another one was arrested, Michael Shallow, a former Daytona Beach city commissioner and current Republican candidate for mayor. He posted $1,000 bail and was released. He was one of nine men charged with lewd and lascivious conduct and exposure of a sexual organ, both misdemeanors, in a Sears restroom. Police report that they heard coughing, sneezing, foot tapping, loud and persistent zipper noises to attract attention from others interested in engaging in sexual acts.

Tagged as: homophobia, republican hypocrisy, craig, gay republicans

Howie Klein is the creator of the blog Down With Tyranny!