Please, be sensitive to the gay community, i.e. Jeff Gannon

[usregimechange]

Please continue to promote the story but just be aware of how you are doing it.

[ClintonTyree]

1. True...............

some of the jokes and remarks are insensitive and I'm probably as guilty as anyone. Just because he's a gay Republican doesn't give us cause to say things that can be construed as humiliating to all gays. Thanks for the reminder.

[demnan]

2. I'm more concerned with what he knew about Plume

then about his funny sex antics. But I think that a real live presstititute is what makes the story funny, not so much that he's homosexual.

Makes you miss "Media Whores Online" doesn't it?

[usregimechange]

12. Is there a Plame connection? nt

[mattclearing]

3. Hear, hear.

Agreed.

[Zan_of_Texas]

4. Jeff Gannon/James Guckert is not an asset to the gay community.

In his journalist costume, he tried to slam Kerry's support (minimal as it is) and threatened that Kerry would be the "first gay president" in the sense of how much he supports gay rights. Thanks a lot, Jeffie.

A lot of us in the gay community are sick and tired of hypocrisy, sick of being kicked around by people who ARE gay, and sick of being kicked around by people who publically denounce gay relationships while secretly engaging in gay sex.

This is not about JG being gay, or even about him selling sex. It's about hypocrisy, it's about access to the White House press room with no legitimate qualifications, and it's about whoever busted Valerie Plame and her efforts to mitigate nuclear proliferation as an undercover agent. It's about fake journalism.

It may be about blackmail, it may be about a ring of illicit sexual activities by higher ups that would shock the Christian right.

I've been saying for months, if the sheeple will not be moved by massive looting and murder and illegal invasions, perhaps some sex scandal will do the, um, trick.

[mermaid]

6. I Like Your Sig Line!!

May I use it, too??

I wanna replace the Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam part of my sig line with something more up-to-date, and yours just hit!!

I love it..."paper ballots, not vapor ballots!!"

[Zan_of_Texas]

8. mermaid - help yourself. The more the merrier!

[Melynn]

5. I was wondering when someone was going to post a comment like this

I think that in a zeal to pursue the "Jeff Gannon" story, its easy to cross the line into gay bashing or homophobia. It something that I have thought about and worried about. And I may have crossed the line myself. Your comments are relevant and dead on and is something that I will think about in the future.
:think:

[EST]

7. Perhaps I am getting too sensitized

I have read every flippin' post about this sleazy, treason grubbing plant in the WH press gaggle, and I have seen every post imploring the DU public to be sensitive about approaching Gannon's proclivities. I have yet to see even one single post "crossing the line" or even getting near it.
I've been ill, today and may be a little less than my normal patient self, but enough, already! We just don't (or at least I don't) give one single slimy tinker's damn about anybody's choice for bed mate or life mate, so please, get off it already!
It appears that too many are dodging a hit when there isn't a sign of one coming.

For the most part, those who are mentally competent enough to be on DU for a reasonable time are in no way going to try to cop a cheap snigger based on their own prejudices, and those who might will be suitably ignored or slapped down soon enough, so stop the dancing, please (Soap box firmly shoved back into closet and door slammed shut)

[usregimechange]

13. Are you a gay man in a strait town? Me either but I don't presume

to know what it is like. All I was saying is that others might feel like they were being laughed at. I agree DU is about the least homophobic place on earth and people should know better but it could be that not everyone is as intellectually protected as you.

[merh]

9. Stop it already! It is not the fact that he is gay that makes this

a legitimate story and concern, but that he was a male prostitute and this admin has based its supremecy on the issue that they are morally superior and "brought dignity back to the white house.

It is the hypocrisy, not the homosexuality. That these bastards have professed to be good Christians, have denounced homosexuality as a sin and an abomination and have ridiculed, targeted and violated the civil rights of gays across this nation while along letting a male prostitute into the WH press corps with only a 2 day journalism certificate to his name, that is the issue.

Be sensitive to the gay community! Exposing the liars for the hypocrits they are is being sensitive to the gay community. Most in the gay community I know hate the weed with a passion, resent the administration's and the repuke's attempts to demonize them and despise the fact that because of their hypocrisy they will not be able to have their family values understood let alone respected! If these folks had no impact on the civil rights of the gays, then fine, let them have their enjoyment, but since they do and they have set the fight for civil rights back 20 years if not more, they deserve to be outed, just as they outed and mocked the outing of Plame.

If it was Jilly/Jane, a female prostitute that some how made here way into the WH press corps, the issues would be the same. Did she use blackmail to get into the press corps since she had no training or education that qualified her as a journalist? Does she constitute a security risk? And again, prostitution is against the law and in the eyes of the family values, fundamentalist Christians, is immoral and very sinful. That type of person, man or woman, being given a pass to be a part of the WH press corps is hypocrisy at its finest.

[mitchum]

10. Guckert reflects on gays no more than Gingrich does on heterosexuals

[qanda]

11. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Read This First:

(snip)

Here is a pretty good example of how the right blogosphere is treating the Manchurian Beefcake story --- from Jonah Goldberg, "Until Jordan quit on Friday, the lefty bloggers were dancing around the victory fire chanting in triumph over bagging this Jeff Gannon guy from Talon News. I'm extending this metaphor too far, I'm sure, but their celebration makes me wonder how so many brave warriors can eat their fill off the carcass of a chipmunk. I confess that at first I thought this sounded like a real story. But it's turned out to be more than a little sad."

(snip)

Meanwhile, on the left we have much handwringing by commenters over this not being a "gay" story and how we should concentrate on the national security angle and how it's really about access etc, etc. We too are ignoring the naked, gay conservative prostitute in the midde of the family values white house living room. And this is where they get us.

Perhaps it would be instructive to take another little trip down memory lane. Jonah knows very well what a real story is because he was up to his ears in one of the biggest political sex scandals in history. From Michael Isifkoff's award winning MSM articles on the Lewinsky affair:

There was another guest at Jonah Goldberg's house in the Adams Morgan section of Washington that day. For some months, Newsweek's Isikoff had been in touch with Tripp – "hounding" her, Goldberg claims. Aware that Isikoff knew of rumors that Clinton was having an affair with a former White House staffer, Goldberg suggested to Tripp that she play the tapes for Isikoff. Uncomfortable with the whole taping process, Isikoff declined to listen and left Goldberg's house.

(more)

It's worth a read: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_02_13_digbysblog_archive.html#110849435828569255

[thebigidea]

15. "until Jordan quit on Friday" - is he serious? nobody gives a shit.

there's been... what, maybe 2 threads on here about Jordan resigning?

Oh yeah, CNN is supposed to be "liberal" or something.

[qanda]

16. The Republicans think they scored big with getting Jordan ousted

Of course, we don't care, but I don't think that's the point. The Republicans don't give two flying figs about fighting dirty and the Democrats are going to either stop being afraid to fight dirty or they are going to continue to get rolled over.

[jdj]

14. I am seeing way more evidence of internalized homophobia

than I am gay-bashing.

And I have pretty much exclusively been on these threads for the last three days or so.

Only rarely have I felt a twinge of homophobia from people I presume to be straight.

But the amount of queers posting things like "don't caw dat dere man gay, you hurt my feewings" has stunned me.

There is nothing wrong with saying someone is gay.

Anyone who thinks there is something wrong with this has issues.

[mermaid]

17. There Is Some...but There's Another Issue Here

If you're not GLBT, you cannot understand it. Being T...I can. So let me explain the undercurrent for you.

There are those in our community who feel that if WE go off on Gannon/Guckert being GAY...then we give power to those on the right who marginalize and minimize us...and discriminate against us.

There are those who feel we are thus handing the RW a club with which to beat us..."See, even THEY think being gay is bad...why ELSE would they make such an issue of Jeffie being gay?"

I fall in the other camp, however, in our community. I'm in that camp that wants to hammer away at Jeffie being gay. Why? Because it isn't the gay issue itself that I want to hammer, IT IS THE HYPOCRASY I want to hammer!! These guys go off on gays, but they won't turn on one of their OWN who is gay...and THAT is the hypocrasy I want to underscore and highlight.

but there is a more (dare I say it) conservative camp of GLBT that doesn't want a big issue made of Gannon/Guckert's sexuality...and for precisely the reason I said above.

This is actually a really big undercurrent of tensions in the GLBT political community right now. Straights, who may not be as "in touch" with these undercurrents...may be misinterpreting the reasons why some of these people want to not make such an issue...and why others, like me, fall into the other camp who want to hammer away at it.