Day: October 8, 2007

Closeted Gay Republican Watch: Armstrong Williams Hosts an A-List Book Party for Justice Thomas

Jon Ponder

It’s no surprise that there was an A-list book party in Washington for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas last week.

In order to fool “values voters” — who would recoil at the thought of going to a party at a gay man’s home — Republicans like Clarence Thomas keep their acceptance of gays on the down low.

It is also unsurprising that the guest list included Dick and Lynne Cheney, the entire U.S. Supreme Court and a handful of senators, along with Will Smith, Barbara Walters, Charles Barkley, Bob Jones of uber-fundamentalist Bob Jones University, Al Sharpton and Julian Bond. (Okay, Sharpton and Bond are a bit of a surprise since Thomas says in the book that liberals are scarier than the KKK.)

But what might surprise the GOP rank and file about the party is that its host, Armstrong Williams, the former conservative TV pundit, is allegedly gay.

Williams is a familiar face because he was a frequent rightwing pundit on cable news, a stint that ended abruptly in January 2005 when it was revealed he had been paid $241,000 to speak favorability about Bush education policies in his capacity as a TV pundit and elsewhere. (More Bush incompetence and profligacy: Williams would have happily shilled for free.)

The prime indicator that Williams might be gay is the fact he settled a sexual harassment suit with a male employee in 1998:

Williams was trotted out on CNN and other cable nets repeatedly [in 2004] during the gay marriage controversy to trash those who argued that marriage equality for same-sex lovers was a “civil right,” an argument which Williams’ pigmentation–in the eyes of TV news producers–gave him standing to make. As originally reported by New York magazine back in 1998:

Armstrong Williams, the conservative talk-show host who instigated a firestorm last week by asking the senator from Mississippi [Trent Lott] whether homosexuality is a sin, is being sued for sexual harassment by a former employee who happens to be male. Last year, Stephen Gregory — the former YMCA personal trainer whom Williams promoted to executive producer of his show — alleged in his suit that the boss grabbed his buttocks and penis, tried to kiss him, and climbed into his hotel-room bed asking for “affection” while they were traveling together. Williams immediately held a press conference to denounce Gregory’s allegations as “false, baseless, and completely completely without merit.”

After the man who was suing him produced affidavits from other men on whom Williams had pressed his unwanted attentions, Williams was forced to admit his denial was a lie, and settled the lawsuit — which alleged 50 separate incidents of rejected physical advances–for $200,000.

With so many sex scandals bubbling up in the GOP of late, surely even the most feeble-minded “values voters” must realize that the gay community is over-represented within the Republican elite. The scales dropping from the eyes among the party’s base can’t be good news for the GOP who have relied on homophobia to get out the vote recently — especially including 2004, when an anti-gay ballot initiative may have delivered Ohio, and thus reelection, to Bush and Cheney.

Senator Smoot

Jon Ponder

Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)
Is planning a ban on smut
Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.
And his reverent occiput.
Smite. Smoot, smite for Ut.,
Grit your molars and do your dut.,
Gird up your l–ns,
Smite h-p and th-gh,
We’ll all be Kansas
By and By.

— Ogden Nash, “Invocation,” 1931

More Evangelical Corruption – This Time It’s Oral Roberts’ Heirs

Jon Ponder

Via Digby who makes the point:

We really are getting to the point where it’s easier to assume that conservative religious leaders are crooks, perverts or liars. Sometimes all three. It’s amazing that the Christian right (to which I would add the Catholic Church’s moral teachings in light of the priest scandal) has thrived as long as it did.

One of my colleague Buck’s favorite moments in the annals of televangelism was Oral Roberts’ unique fundraising campaign in 1987 in which he told his sheeple that God had put a ransom on his head. The Big Guy was demanding that Roberts’ followers cough up $8 million or else He would smite Roberts dead.

Amazing it seems, this bizarre fundraising appeal worked. In fact, it wasn’t even considered much of a scandal at the time.

Now Roberts, who is 89, may be facing real scandals in the organizations he founded and in his family — scandals that include political skullduggery, Jim and Tammy Bakker-style lavish spending and purportedly “scores” of improper text messages sent by Oral’s middle-aged daughter-in-law to underaged males:

Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors’ expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter’s senior trip to the Bahamas and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.”

According to Charity Navigator,Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association has negative net assets of $-12, 687,594. Richard Roberts, who is president and CEO, receives a salary of $105,000. Lindsay Roberts, executive vice president, receives salary of $77,000.

The Red Scare Lives: Rightwing Trots Out Socialized Medicine Scare

Jon Ponder

As Michael Moore points out in “Sicko,” his documentary on how corporate greed has destroyed the U.S. healthcare system, rightwingers never complain about the socialism of the U.S. military or local fire and police departments and libraries. It is only when discussing healthcare that the old socialist bogeyman is dredged up:

Nearly two decades after the West’s victory over communism, one might have thought it possible to discuss reform of the health-care system without invocations of the old saw “socialized medicine.” But no.

“At least Mr. Baucus isn’t disguising his socialist goal,” a Wall Street Journal editorial claimed about the Montana senator’s push to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. “In sum, SCHIP turns out to be socialized medicine for ‘kids,’ ” wrote Post columnist Robert Novak. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the “SCHIP bill is not a back door to get socialized medicine. They went straight to the front door.” Rudy Giuliani argued: “The American way is not single-payer, government-controlled anything. That’s a European way of doing something; that’s frankly a socialist way of doing something.”

The reason for this is clear: The insurance companies are major donors to the GOP. As was famously said in another horror movie: “Quid pro quo, Dr. Lector.”