As we end (for now) our series of posts looking at extremist statements Cathie Adams has made over the years, we present some of what the new Texas Republican Party chair has said in the past about gay men and lesbians. She has been both contemptuous and absurdly contradictory in her statements about the right of gay and lesbian Americans to live free from hatred and discrimination.
“This display of immoral pictures and articles presents a clear and present danger to traditional families as the media’s odd tolerance is doing its best to mainstream sexual perversion.”
— From Texas Eagle Forum’s Web site in a March 2003 news “Update,” criticizing mainstream newspaper articles about same-sex couples
“While our President enjoys high polling numbers because of his leadership in the war against terror, we cannot look the other way when he elevates homosexuals and homosexual sympathizers to key positions within the White House and within the GOP.”
— April 7, 2003, e-mail to TEF activists, criticizing President Bush for hiring gay people
Then just one week later:
“This bill is unnecessary because there is little evidence that persons are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.”
— April 15, 2003, e-mail to TEF activists, opposing legislation against job discrimination based on sexual orientation
“Texas’ laws should be aligned with nature and nature’s God, thus protecting children from the unnatural and unhealthy lifestyles of homosexuality and bisexuality.”
— Feb. 12, 2003, e-mail to TEF activists
Being a southern person myself, something occurred to me tonight. Maybe Cathie Adams and the people like her are “living out” or “acting out” something very old and very southern—namely the item below (if it will work). Tell me what you think:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixx66T-FPYM&feature=related
I knew someone from S. Florida who expressed those exact sentiments, though his was certainly less flamboyant. He said he’d been so hungry growing up in W. Virginia that he swore he’d do whatever it took to put food in his mouth, even 60 years later. I thought it very strange, though I was only 15 and had never faced a complete lack of food for any extended time. Perhaps it was that his demeanor was always calm, cool and collected, so the short view of the current running underneath that peaceful facade was jarring.
Hey, Charles, that was great. That silhouette in front of the orange sky is so iconic, I didn’t even have to play it to know the speech.
I don’t know if I agree that such determination is peculiar to southerners. I’m not a southerner but there are many other demographic groups who have been pushed to near extinction besides southerners (or Scarlet O’Hara).
But you did nail it with the bit about “I’ll lie, cheat, steal or kill.” As we’ve seen, those are highly-esteemed tactics among Christian conservatives.
If anyone wonders if such insanity as Adams spouts can actually be translated into legislation, they should take a look at the 2010 Texas GOP platform: http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2010RPTFinalPlatform.pdf
It’s pure barbarism, not just in it’s outrageous homophobia (calling for reinstatement of sodomy laws, forbidding custody of children by homosexuals, removing all homosexuals from protection under the Americans With Disabilitis Act, etc., etc., etc.), but the outright dismantling of basic, bedrock American values: seperation of church and state, independent judiciary, birthright citizenship, etc.