Senator Ted Kennedy dug into Surgeon General Dr. James Holsinger during today's Senate hearing. The senator from Massachusetts eschewed questions on obesity and tobacco, two of Holsinger's medical missions, and instead asked the Kentucky based doctor about that now infamous anti-gay, United Methodist Church-backed paper, "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality":
This grave misuse of science gravely concerns me, and I need to hear from Dr. Holsinger himself that he will not similarly misuse his position to push his personal ideological beliefs over scientific research.
Not surprisingly Holsinger denied being a homophobic fundamentalist.
The bearded physician told the Senate:
Since my nomination on May 24, there have been several statements made about me. Questions have been raised about my faith and about my commitment to ensuring the health and welfare of all Americans, including gay and lesbian Americans.I am deeply troubled by these claims, which do not reflect who I am, what I believe or the work I have accomplished in over 40 years of practicing medicine. … Let me be clear — I have a profound respect for the essential human dignity of all people regardless of background or sexual orientation.
Holsinger also insisted the paper had no scientific backing and "doesn't represent where I am today". We suppose people can change, although we're a not sure we buy it.
Meanwhile, presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Chris Dodd, all of whom have questioned Holsinger's medical merits, failed to show up to the hearing. They will, however, be appearing at HRC's gay debate.
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Chris Dodd will be in the gay debate too???
He needs to completely repudiate this piece of garbage report, issued in the internecine warfare of the Methodist church over homosexuality.
I totally don't buy the "oh that's not who I am today" crap, unless he can produce some recent writing he's done about how he thinks the homo's are peachy that demonstrates his change of heart. We had better see some aggressive work from the Dems on this one.
Well, it is an old paper, isn't it? Him claiming that it isn't scientifically backed-up means quite a lot, I think. It means that he admits that it's just prejudicial garbage not worthy of a rational human beings interest. But yes, we can't be sure, and have good reason to stay sceptical about his real commitments. Hopefully you get a new candidate whose history is less outdated.
I think that if he had said "it's just prejudicial garbage not worthy of a rational human beings interest" I'd've taken the change of heart story more seriously. In the absence of anything more compelling than "oh no, really, I do like everyone ever so muchly I do" this just looks like another case of "confirmation conversion" — like he's under instruction to say the right things to his interrogators. It'll be interesting to see if he gets away with it.
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