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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I posted this at the end of an earlier article and am reposting it so it will get more views and hopefully lots of fun uses. "Foleyate" use it enjoyably and often.
Foleyate:(verb) to taint a political party with scandal, negatively affecting their success in an election year.
Derivation: Mark Foley's page scandal tainted the entire GOP contributing to their losses in the 2006 election.
Use in a sentence: Republican leaders and right wing pundits are demanding that Senator Larry Craig resign now, because they fear if he remains in office until the end of his term, or even chooses to run for reelection, he will Foleyate the rest of the GOP ticket in 2008.
We need some sort of constitutional amendment dealing with restroom stalls.
This is a post that is of course seriously overdue. Clearly the whole "family values" issue is a sham. There are no principles involved. But the issue does have power. The reason it has power is sadly there are certain things that make many people uncomfortable to contemplate. For many people, sex between two men is high on that list. (I'm assuming that for many straight men the contemplation of sex between two women doesn't elicit the same reaction.)
So what we have is an entire edifice of outrage and moral indignation built up over what at its core is just personal discomfort. The reason Rush traipsing off to the DR for a little chemically enhanced recreation doesn't elicit the same reaction is because it simply doesn't cause the same discomfort.
This is great reporting and analysis. Others in the media should follow your example. Keep up the good work.
I agree with the notion that so-called 'Family Values' parties pick their battles, and more basically are more political organizations than values organizations per se. That said, they do of course also regulate heterosexual morality when they feel they can get away with it. The abortion issue is a big case, obviously; myriad birth control and 'abstinence' initiatives; and the odd phenomenon of so-called 'covenant' marriages, meant to make divorce more difficult and in general to uphold a more conservative vision of what marriage is all about.
And persecuted to an early grave. If only for the humor value.
but it's sort of off topic.
I worked at an Idaho daily, and Craig was traveling through, wanting to talk about his Senate campaign. He'd been in the House, but wanted to take over Jim McClure's Senate seat.
I drew the short straw and had to sit down with Craig, his campaign guru and the editorial board. They said nothing noteworthy, and were finally packing up to leave, when the campaign chief decided to tell a joke, and for the sake of brevity, I'll convert the anecdote to a question:
Why are condoms sold in packs of seven, nine and 12?
- The sevens are for Asians -- Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ....
- The nines are for African Americans -- S, M, T, W, Th, twice on Friday, twice on Saturday.
- The 12s are for whites -- January, February ...
We din't do a story on this joke, deciding that the levity occurred after the interview was over and we'd regard it as "off the record." Plus, at the time, it seemed the joke was more aimed at whites than the other minorities mentioned. And, well, our readers would have thought it was hilarious and we already had a comics page.
But I do remember Craig's face becoming prudishly flat and expressionless. He wasn't amused. Can't blame him, really.
The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations -- from divorce to adultery to prostitution -- are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation.
This applies to a far broader set of "moral values." The repugs concentrate on sexual matters in order to avoid challenging their base on non-sexual morality: helping the poor, sick, disabled and elderly, fighting for social and economic justice, supporting all kinds of families, improving education, building communities, reaching out to "the other," turning the other cheek, rejecting violence and seeking peace.
You know, all that stuff Jesus talked about.
All the stuff Democrats stand for.
Take away the sexual shame component of the repugs, and all that's left is stamping on the middle class to further enrich the wealthy.
Like the old argument about how repugs would suffer from the repeal of Roe, nothing would destroy the repugs faster than if homosexuality suddenly ceased to exist.
You've nailed it, Glenn! The Republicans aren't calling for Vitter's resignation because they would run the risk of losing Vitter's seat to a Democrat. As for the repulsive Tony Perkins, perhaps the most telling thing about him is that he bought con-man Klansman David Duke's mailing list.
John McCain, who admitted to being a serial adulterer during his first marriage, is calling on Craig to resign. No one in the "values community" is calling on senator Vitter to resign, although they are supposed to be strict adherers of the ten commandments. At which point do you make hyper-hypocrisy a federal crime?
Excellent analysis, as usual, Glenn. But let's not forget basic hatred -- i.e., homophobia -- as a motivator here. This country has made great strides in its attitude toward gays and lesbians, strides I never thought I would be able to see when I first realized I was gay and started peeking out of the closet. It's even gotten to the point that overt gay-bashing is mostly seen as unacceptable, at least among the intelligentsia of this country. But let's not kid ourselves: a large segment of the population just hates us, thinks we're nasty, evil, perverted, sinners and wishes we would just go away (i.e., drop dead). Much of the Vitter/Craig differential stems from that basic fact.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
