If this guy were your father or grandfather -- with his self-righteous and bigoted views about human rights on display for the world to see -- how open would you be about your sexual orientation or your toxic marriage?

His claim of no divorces in his family is plausible and in any case can be verified through court records. However, there's no possible way he could be sure that there are no gays and lesbians in his family. The closets could be stuffed with them.

What he's really done is make his family the target of scrutiny and ridicule. So much for family values!

I grew up in Oklahoma, and some of my family still lives and votes there, and no one in the recorded history of my family has ever voted for Jim Inhofe. Furthermore, no one in the recorded history of my family has been a senator.

He could not be more proud of his family than I am of mine. Maybe I'll make a pie chart and give C-SPAN a call.

You know, if Dick Cheney had an ounce of pride or decency he would walk into the senate chamber and tell the good and righteous senator from Oklahoma to go fuck himself.

The good Senator might want to keep in mind that life ain't over yet.

To be that sure that there are no homosexual relationships in his family, I'm going to have to assume that Sen. Inhofe spends an inordinate amount of time peeking into his relatives' bedroom windows. Isn't that a felony?

P.S. to "saintzak": Rather than Dick Cheney telling Inhofe to go fuck himself, I think he should invite him to go hunting.

has just issued a challenge to the internets. :) Anyone want to place a bet on how soon we find out about his GLBT family member(s)?

You must have lots of closet space.

Hilarious stuff!! Hope I live long enough to become senile and start spouting such ridiculous historical "facts". I guess he could have also added that his family has never had any "Negroes" or "Illegals" either just for good measure!!

When I think of my own extended/blended family on both sides I think fondly of my (selectively closeted) gay relatives and fondly, if a little sadly, about several other, mostly older relatives who are just as convinced as the senator that there are no gays in our family.

Lord - if the demands of my job were not what they are - and if I had nothing better to do this summer than wade thru the seamy history of this idiot's family - I would love to go turning over rocks and watching the varmints hide from the light of day.

It was dark in the rest area and hard to hear...I thought at the time he said "i'm an oaf" but now I think I know the name of the gentleman who propositioned me. Can't ever be to sure about your relatives.

Even if the oft-cited 10% figure is incorrect (as in 10% of the population is gay), the odds that there's a homosexual in that group of 22 Inhofe family members are pretty darn good. And the likelihood that at least one of that 22 has experimented with the same sex somewhere along the line is darn near certain given even conservative estimates. So, whether he knows it or not, Senator Inhofe almost certainly has at least a tinge of pink along the edges of a few leaves on the Inhofe family tree. It's not surprising that he's unaware of it, though; given his staunch pride in his family's heterosexuality, it's doubtful that any of his family members would have the courage to come out. Wait till those grandkids are grown, though; by then homosexuality will be even more widely accepted than it is today, and family pressure to stay in the hell of the closet just won't be enough any more.

And who the hell would prefer that a family member they presumably love stay in that closet hell rather than come out, anyway? I don't know Senator Inhofe, but if he chooses family pride over family honesty he's a pisspoor patriarch as far as I'm concerned.

Given that ~2-3% of the population is gay, then, in a group of 20 people (his kids and grandkids), the odds are about 54-67% that none will be gay (.98^20=.667, .97^20=.54).

The odds that none will be divorced, however, are much slimmer, so that's the real oddity here.

All good comments about the gay and lesbian family members that the good senator doesn't know he has. The divorce comment is provocative, too. Considering the rather high divorce/mistress/trophy wife content in our congress, I wonder how many republican "family uber alles" guys were studying their ballpoints during that part of these silly comments.

How about an incestuous one?

And just how does he define "relationship"? Three or more dates?

Although the 2%-3% estimate refuses to die in some circles, simple math tells you that 10% of the population is still the best estimate. When you add up all the parades, marches, film festivals, circuit parties, rodeos, bear beer busts, Dinah Shore golf tournaments, White House Easter Egg hunts and on and on and on, every single gay man and woman in the country would have to be turning out for these events on a near-constant basis and common sense tells you that ain't happening. How much free time do you have on your hands? Gay people have jobs and kids and lives, too. And we haven't even touched upon those who would never even think of attending a gay-themed event in their entire lives. Like a gay Inhofe, for instance.

The senile Senator has, however, cut to the heart of the problem: If he knew that he does, indeed, have gay offspring then chances are excellent he wouldn't be such a bigoted idiot on this issue.

A reporter should ask Inhoefe: given his pride in none of his family being gay, should Cheney be ashamed of his?

Variation: where does he think Cheney went wrong in his parenting to end up with a gay daughter?