Larry Craig Said it Best

By Win McCormack
Author of You Don't Know Me: A Citizen's Guide to Republican Family Values

I was mulling over topics for an article I could write to support the release of our guide to Republican values —when, wouldn’t you know it, a conservative Republican anti-gay crusader came to my aid in the nick of time.

Like most vociferous anti-gay politicians, this one turns out to be gay himself. I speak of the attorney general of the former Confederate state of Alabama, Mr. Troy King. Last week, Wonkette reported that King had been caught in flagrante with a tender, youthful male aide by his wife, in their marital bed no less; this alleged event occurred in the couple’s house in Montgomery, the very capital of Jefferson Davis’s renegade racist confederacy.

Incidentally, former senator from neighboring Mississippi and one-time Republican majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Trent Lott, once said that the American political leader he "felt the closest to" was Jefferson Davis. Ain’t contemporary Republican politics grand? One can only imagine how Republican leader of the Union Abraham Lincoln would have reacted to that sentiment. Oh, and speaking of Republican presidents, we should probably note that General King was the Alabama state chair for the campaign of Republican presidential aspirant John McCain (the Pensito Review website has reported that McCain’s website was "scrubbed" of King’s name soon after the Wonkette posting).

The anti-gay family values politician who is clandestinely indulging in the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (within the Republican Party, anyway) is becoming a predictable stereotype. King has called homosexuality "the downfall of society" and once wrote that AIDS could be cleansed from America, "if this nation’s current purveyors of perversion would refrain from committing sodomy." The most notorious recent example of the gay anti-gay Republican hypocrite is, of course, Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who ungraciously provided the title for our guide to Republican family values. According to his hometown newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, the long time Republican federal legislator once told one of his male lovers, as he quickly ushered him out of the house after the completion of a sexual congress: "Just remember, you don’t know me."

In my introduction to You Don’t Know Me: A Citizen’s Guide to Republican Family Values, I reference a study by Henry E. Adams et al. published in a 1996 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, "Is Homophobia Associated with Homosexual Arousal?" To quote from the study: a subject group of men "were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes…Only the homophobic men showed any increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli." Enough said?

COMING SOON! Alabama Attorney General Troy King’s resolve to quash the dangerous Killer Rabbit by enforcing his state’s ban on the sale of sex toys.

Author Bio
Win McCormack is the publisher and editor in chief of Tin House magazine and a political activist in the Democratic Party. He has written for Oregon magazine, the Oregonian, Oregon Humanities magazine, Tin House, and the Nation and was the winner of a William Allen White commendation for his investigative coverage of the Rajneesh cult. He resides in Portland, Oregon. His book, You Don't Know Me: A Citizen's Guide to Republican Family Values is available now from Tin House Books.

Test Your Family Values IQ!

Name the Moral Exemplar Who …

… died of autoerotic-asphyxiation dressed in two rubber wet suits , slippers, and gloves?
Correct: Gary Aldridge
Jerry Falwell
Oral Roberts
Robert Gray

…was married three times, refused to pay child support, and licked whip cream off two womens’ breasts at a charity event?
Correct: Bob Barr
Bob Packwood
David Vitter
John McCain

…once bragged about participating in gangbanging a woman in a weight lifting gym?
Correct: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Shawn Hannity
Henry Hyde
Mark Foley

…admitted to sleeping with mysterious women who appeared at his hotel rooms during a tour of Southeast Asia?
Correct: Neil Bush
George W. Bush
George H.W. Bush
Jeb Bush

… insists he is not gay but was busted soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom, and accused of having sexual relationships with numerous men?
Correct: Larry Craig
Mark Foley
Jim West
Richard Curtis

… took methamphetamine and engaged in sex with a gay prostitute?
Correct: Ted Haggard
Philip Giordano
Alfred Bloomingdale
Richard A. Dasen, Sr.

… arrived at his wife’s bedside after her cancer surgery with divorce papers and carried on an affair with his own young staffer while also advocating for Clinton's impeachment?
Correct: Newt Gingrich
Bob Barr
Rudy Giuliani
Henry Hyde

… bragged about having sex with a mule and featured pictures of bestiality and homosexual acts on his web site?
Correct: Neal Horsley
Clarence Thomas
Scooter Libby
John Doolittle

… was accused of repeatedly encouraging a subordinate to purchase a vibrator for herself and of using one on himself while talking to her over the phone?
Correct: Bill O’Reilly
Roger Stone
Rick Santorum
Ed Schrock

… had a great affinity for a porn star
named Long Dong Silver, and accused a coworker of placing pubic hair on his Coke can?
Correct: Clarence Thomas
Antonin Scalia
John Roberts
Samuel Alito

… posted advertisements of himself and his wife dressed in leather garb on a partner-swapping Web site?
Correct: Roger Stone
Jack Ryan
Robert Bauman
Ted Haggard

… described in his novel about Japan numerous sexual perversions, including bears having sex with young girls?
Correct: Scooter Libby
Bill O’Reilly
Stephen LaTourette
Dan Burton

… carried on an extramarital affair and fathered a child with an Air Force Colonel while crusading to post the ten commandments in public buildings?
Correct: Vito Fossella
Matthew Glavin
Jeff Gannon
Glenn Murphy, Jr.

www.YouDontKnowMebook.com