Exclusive: John McCain’s A.G. Pals Overwhelmingly Anti-Gay

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QUEERTY REPORTS: You judge a man by the company he keeps. Particularly when they’re gunning for the White House. We’re speaking, of course, about John McCain, the Republican candidate whose two references today speak volumes about the candidate.

The most recent concerned John Hagee, the pastor McCain courted and who also happens to believe God sent Hurricane Katrina to punish gay-loving New Orleans. Wacko, right. The other mention came via professor Christopher Latimer, who reminded readers that while McCain may be relatively liberal on the gays when compared to his party peers, his political appointees may not be like-minded.

We were intrigued by this point, so we took a look at McCain’s supporters and narrowed in on the Attorney Generals who have backed his presidency. And we don’t like what we found.

The most familiar name on the list – which is twelve deep at the moment- is definitely Mike Bowers, the Georgian Attorney General who found himself in court defending the state’s sodomy laws. The case, Hardwick v. Bowers, concerned a man named Michael Hardwick who had been arrested for sodomy after police officers unlawfully entered his home and found him in bed with another man. A lower court initially ruled in Hardwick’s favor, saying the laws were a violation of privacy. That’s when Bowers entered the picture:

…Bowers asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that ancient scholars “considered even consensual sodomy to be as heinous as the crime of rape” (Later, in 1997, while running for governor, Bowers was forced to admit that he had been cheating on his wife for 15 years. His mistress told the world, “As far as sodomy is concerned, Mike Bowers is a hypocrite.”)

Bowers ended up losing his gubernatorial race. Poor thing.

Georgia’s Supreme Court ended up ruling Bowers favor and Hardwick v. Bowers would remain on the books until being overturned the Supreme Court’s decision during 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, also a McCain supporter, decried the Lawrence verdict, which invalidated the States’ sodomy laws. McMaster worried the decision would infringe on his state’s right to regulate “detrimental” behavior:

Texas, just like South Carolina, has the fundamental right and authority as a sovereign state to enact laws prohibiting behavior deemed inappropriate and detrimental to the state.

The citizens of our state, through their elected representatives, have seen fit to have our law against sodomy in effect since the Lord Proprietors governed South Carolina.

Yet another historically dated argument. We’re sensing a pattern here.

Moving out of the bedroom and into the nursery, Indiana’s Steve Carter urged the Hoosier State’s Supreme Court to intervene in a case concerning a gay couple who wanted to adopt a baby girl. A lower court had ruled that the women could, in fact, raise the child. And, like Bowers and Hardwick, the Carter sent the case to the Supreme Court.

Wrote Carter:

There has been conflict among trial and appellate judges about whether two people can jointly adopt a child when they are not married. Given such a division thus far among five judges at two different levels of our courts; and given the fact that the state Supreme Court has not yet had the opportunity to interpret the most recent relevant enactment of the legislature, I find it proper to invite the High Court to be heard in this matter.

Some took Carter’s “concern” to be an attempt to detract gay rights. At the least, it indicates a severely short-sighted view of family. And we know where that comes from…

Speaking of short-sighted family values, Virginia-based Bob McDonnell also endorsed John McCain and, in 2006, backed a state-wide constitutional ban on gay marriage despite Democratic Governor Timothy M. Kaine’s objections to the measure. Kaine argued that the law’s language – no legal recognition for unmarried couples “that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effects of marriage.” That, he said, offered too many misinterpretations and would further complicate the state’s laws. McDonnell disagreed, saying that they law would have no impact on wills and other contracts, and, thus, should be put forth. McDonnell ended up getting his way, which no doubt pleased Jerry Kilgore, another Virginia Attorney General.

Kilgore’s a queer case, largely because many accuse him of being queer. Perhaps it’s his alleged inner turmoil that led him to “gay-bait” during 2005’s gubernatorial election, which he lost to Kaine:

During the campaign, the Kilgore campaign ran ads saying that Kaine supported gay adoption. Kaine’s position is that the current law – which says the best interest of the child is the primary consideration, and allows single people and married couples to adopt – strikes the right balance, of the Kaine campaign.

As state attorney general, Kilgore said the Fairfax School Board did not have the authority to include sexual orientation discrimination in its non-discrimination policy.

For the record, Kaine was also accused of gay-baiting, like when he ran an ad calling Kilgore “weak” and said he “isn’t being straight.

To be fair to Kilgore, he did raise right wing eyebrows in 2003 when he promised not to discriminate against gay people when hiring his staff. Of course, that was probably to serve his selfish purposes. If he really cared about the gays, he wouldn’t have publicly decried gay marriage and civil unions on his now cached campaign website.

Another supporter who’s not entirely evil: Mark Shurtleff of Utah. He came out against his state’s proposed ban on gay marriage, saying the law would “forever deny to a group of citizens the right to approach its Legislature to seek benefits and protections. This is bad law and should be rejected.” He also voiced his support for the Log Cabin Republicans, which some would probably consider “not good,” but we’re all about it.

Any gay good will Shurtleff and Kilgore may bring McCain goes straight down the drain when we read this letter another supporter, Troy King of Alabama, wrote to University of Alabama Crimson White newspaper while in law school. The school had apparently just inaugurated a gay group:

The existence of the Gay/Lesbian alliance on this campus is an affront to the state of Alabama, its citizenry, this diversity and its students. However, it is also an outrage to compel those students with both moral and religious objections to the activities and ideas espoused by this organization to contribute money, via student fees, to subsidize these activities.

One has but to look at the forces which the controversy has united–from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Organization of Women to the Queer Nation just to name a few–to clearly see how corrupt a cause this truly is.

The argument can often be heard that what goes on in the bedroom is private. However, it is flawed reasoning to attempt to justify the gay movement in America today on this basis, for they have taken sex from the confines of the bedroom into the streets, the evening news, and now even the front page of the newspaper.

Crimson White had, in fact, run a picture of gay students just the week before, and King described it as “the front page of Sodom and Gomorrah News the day before those cities were destroyed.” He and John Hagee will have loads to talk about while fighting to install John McCain in office.

While there’s no indication McCain would ever give these men any higher powers, their pattern of behavior indicates that the “liberal” Republican remains indebted to his more conservative brethren. And that can only turn out one way: bad.

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