Making her bigotry an issue

I’d planned on trying to avoid posting much about individual Democratic presidential candidates because I’m neutral. However, today there was such vile bigotry directed at one candidate that it must be called out. Sadly, I’ve had to do that for decades. Worse still, I can see this won’t be the last time I’ll need to do.

Today MSNBC anchor Kendis Gibson hosted a discussion about Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s religion, and how that relates to religious conservatives (video above). The segment began well, with Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, who has long talked about Christianity and gay people (I featured a video of him on this blog back in 2012). He discussed how Mayor Pete’s religious views fit into certain Christian views, and how Frankie Graham’s recent loopy attacks on Mayor Pete shows Graham is desperately out of step with core Christian tenets, and how his rank hypocrisy about the current occupant undercuts all his arguments against Mayor Pete.

The next guest was a “conservative radio host” who is so unimportant that she doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry. She attacked Mayor Pete for “making his gayness an issue". And how did he do that? He dared to share a kiss with his husband when Pete announced his candidacy! Shock! Horror!

“Clearly Pete Buttigieg has made his gayness an issue in this campaign,” she educated us. “He’s brought his husband up on stage. They shared a kiss during his announcement.”

Gibson pushed back, pointing out that Mayor Pete didn’t make his gayness an issue any more than a straight person makes their straightness an issue, and that he barely mentioned that he’s a gay person in his announcement. The “conservative radio host” doubled down:

I think he made it a huge issue. He talked about his spouse, Chasten, and the fact that they were, um, you know, married. And let’s be real: This is not a typical candidate. We haven’t had had a gay presidential candidate ever in the history of the United States. And he made it an issue. He could have ignored it. He could have said nothing. And people would have speculated about it. But he made it an issue. So he wants that to be an identifier.

Gibson could be heard laughing with incredulity at the “conservative radio host”. Matthew Vines, meanwhile, could be seen in split-screen shots apparently trying to avoid smiling, much less laughing at the “conservative radio host” and her moronic statements. He succeeded, and only reacted at the very end when he nodded in agreement with Gibson’s pushback when he said that Mayor Pete “only did what many straight straight couples have done,” to which the “conservative radio host” responded, “Well they shared a kiss on stage, which is unusual.”

Here’s the thing. There are many Rightwingers in the USA who agree with her distaste for the very existence of openly gay people, and the older they are, the more likely they are to hold fast to such antique ideas: Younger people of whatever political leaning couldn’t possibly care less, and they don’t think a gay couple sharing a kiss is “unusual”. Maybe older Rightwingers just need to get out more.

What’s so deeply offensive about the comments from that “conservative radio host” is what she was really saying when she declared that Mayor Pete “could have ignored [the fact he’s gay]. He could have said nothing. And people would have speculated about it. But he made it an issue.” What she was really saying was that if he was deeply closeted, like many Republican politicians have been, it would have been different and somehow better. Seriouslly?!

How, precisely could he have “ignored it”? He’s married to a man, he’s a public figure who is already known as being a married gay man. Was he supposed to just pretend none of it’s true? That he’s really just a bachelor waiting for the right girl to come along? Because what she’s really saying is that he has to lie about himself in order to make her feel better. But if she’s threatened by a mere kiss, what does that say about how she feels about gay people in general?

We are well past the time when gay people have to lie about who they are in order for heterosexual snowflakes on the Right to feel comfortable in their safespace of ignorance. Gay people are as fully human and complex as heterosexuals are, and when someone objects to a gay person being fully human, they’re not being rational: They’re being bigots.

I’m so sick of having to call this shit out over and over again, as I’ve been doing for more than 35 years. Heterosexuals do not get to tell gay people how to be gay people. They do not get to object when a married gay couple shares a kiss just like a married heterosexual couple does. And they damn sure don’t get to complain about a gay person “making being gay an issue” just by being, you know, gay when it’s clearly the heterosexual who has made it “an issue”.

I don’t know who that “conservative radio host” is or why she’s used as a pundit, but based on her, um, "contribution" to that segment, I hope I never see her again. When I watch a political discussion, I want to hear the speakers on all sides of an issue, whether I agree or disagree with them, offer intelligent, reasoned, and rational commentary. Rank, bald bigotry is none of those things.

People can agree with Mayor Pete (or any of the other candidates) or not. They also don’t have to like any particular candidate, and that can even based on nothing more than feelings. But when talking about candidates, especially when criticising them, doing so based merely on who they are is never an acceptable line of attack. Ever. Things like race, gender, age, religious belief (or lack of), class, and sexuality are never acceptable lines of attack.

There are things I like and dislike about pretty much every Democratic candidate for president. In fact, if they could all be mixed together and extruded, the result would probably be pretty much perfect for me. But that’s not how it works: We take the candidates in their totality, look at the issues they talk about and the vision they offer for dealing with those issues, and we make our choice. Who they are, the bits and pieces of their identity, may be interesting, but they're  NOT what we’ll be electing: We’ll be electing a whole human being. Rational people understand that—it’s too bad that “conservative radio host” can’t.

So far, I’ve ignored the personal attacks on the Democratic candidates, most of which have been merely silly or childish. But today’s display of bald bigotry was so egregious that I had to respond. The worst thing, though, is that this won’t be the last time I’ll need to do that because the human capacity for bigotry, and people's need to express it, seems to be unlimited. And that means I'll have to talk about individual candidates more than I intended to.

Welcome to the 2020 US Presidential Election campaign.

If the video above doesn’t play, watch it on the MSNBC site.