Craig and the Catch-22 of "closet gay" conservatives

Except for Senator Craig's support for the "amnesty bill," he was a good ally of conservatives throughout his political career. He has been on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association since 1983. The American Conservative Union gave Craig's 2005 voting record 96 points out of 100. (Americans for Democratic Action gave him 15.)

I can't make any excuses for what happened recently. Even if Craig had not been married and had been openly homosexual, the fact that he was caught in indiscrete and undignified behavior (and then pled guilty) compromised his career fatally.

Right now we don't know all the facts but from what little I know I would guess that Craig has always been homosexual. He married soon after the page scandal of 1982. His wife may have been what is known as a "beard" by closeted homosexuals - a disguise or marriage of convenience. Craig adopted the three children from his wife's previous marriage but did not father any children of his own. He may not even have been "intimate" with his wife at all. Maybe she knew that she was his "beard." That will all come out eventually.

This whole Craig scandal made me think about other closet homosexual conservatives like J. Edgar Hoover, Whittaker Chambers, Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn.

[I did not write the following paragraphs. I saved them for an earlier post that I did about Hoover but unfortunately I forgot to note where they came from. They come from several sources.]

Hoover was director of the FBI for 48 years but his anti-communist work began long before that. When he was still working at the Library of Congress, he decided to create a card index of people with left-wing political views. Hoover collected 450,000 names with detailed biographical notes on the 60,000 that he considered the most dangerous.

On 7th November, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution, over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested in twenty-three different cities. However, the vast majority of these people were American citizens and had to be eventually released. However, Hoover now had the names of hundreds of lawyers who were willing to represent radicals in court. These were now added to his growing list of names in his indexed database.

Hoover's persecution of people with left-wing views had the desired effect and membership of the Communist Party, estimated to have been 80,000 before the raids, fell to less that 6,000. In 1921 Hoover was rewarded by being promoted to the post of assistant director of the Bureau of Investigation. Hoover was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924.

[...]

The power of the bureau was limited. Law enforcement was a state activity, not a federal one. Hoover's agents were not allowed to carry guns, nor did they have the right to arrest suspects. Hoover complained about this situation and in 1935 Congress agreed to establish the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Agents were now armed and could act against crimes of violence throughout the United States.

Hoover now set about establishing a world-class crime fighting organization. Innovations introduced by Hoover included the formation of a scientific crime-detection laboratory and the highly regarded FBI National Academy. Hoover appointed Clyde Tolson as Assistant Director of the FBI.

[...]

In his book, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993), Anthony Summers claims that Hoover and Tolson became lovers. For the next forty years the two men were constant companions. In the FBI the couple were known as "J. Edna and Mother Tolson". Mafia boss, Meyer Lansky, obtained photographic evidence of Hoover's homosexuality and was able to use this to stop the FBI from looking too closely into his own criminal activities.

When the journalist, Ray Tucker, hinted at Hoover's homosexuality in an article for Collier's Magazine, he was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Information about Tucker's private life was leaked to the media and when this became known, other journalists were frightened off from writing about this aspect of Hoover's life.

Whittaker Chambers was a member of the Communist Party and a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930s but he became disillusioned by Josef Stalin's Great Purge (which began about 1936) and eventually broke with the Communist Party in 1938 and became an outspoken opponent of communism. He is best known for his testimony about the perjury and espionage of Alger Hiss.

Chambers was a self-confessed homosexual. This did not lead to his persecution probably because Hoover protected him since he had turned against the communists. (BTW Richard Nixon, a loyal Chambers ally, always believed that Chambers and Hiss had been lovers.)

In 1939 Chambers went to work for TIME Magazine where he became known as a staunch anti-communist and was promoted to chief editor. After the Hiss trial, William F. Buckley, Jr. started the magazine National Review and Chambers worked there as senior editor. (BTW He wrote a scathing review of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" for NR.)

From Wikipedia:

In 1952, Chambers's book "Witness" was published to widespread acclaim. The book was combination of autobiography, an account of his role in the Hiss case and a warning about the dangers of Communism and liberalism. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called it one of the greatest of all American autobiographies, and Ronald Reagan credited the book as the inspiration behind his conversion from a New Deal Democrat to a conservative Republican.

Joseph McCarthy needs no introduction. Again I did not write the following paragraphs and did not note their source because I saved them before I started blogging.

For some time opponents of McCarthy had been accumulating evidence concerning his homosexual activities. Several members of his staff, including Roy Cohn and David Schine, were also suspected of having a sexual relationship. Although well-known by political journalists, the first article about it did not appear until Hank Greenspun published an article in the Las Vagas Sun in 25th October, 1952. Greenspun wrote that: "It is common talk among homosexuals in Milwaukee who rendezvous in the White Horse Inn that Senator Joe McCarthy has often engaged in homosexual activities."

McCarthy considered a libel suit against Greenspun but decided against it when he was told by his lawyers that if the case went ahead he would have to take the witness stand and answer questions about his sexuality. In an attempt to stop the rumours circulating, McCarthy married his secretary, Jeannie Kerr. Later the couple adopted a five-week old girl from the New York Foundling Home.

Roy Cohn and David Schine may or may not have been lovers and, though Cohn was a closeted gay, his homosexuality was common knowledge among those with whom he worked.

From Wikipedia:

It was Cohn who invited G. David Schine, an anti-communist propagandist, to join McCarthy's staff as a consultant. When Schine was drafted into the army in 1953, Cohn made repeated and extensive efforts to procure special treatment for Schine.

[...]

During the Army-McCarthy hearings, he denied having "special interest" in Schine or being bound to him "closer than to the ordinary friend."

Joseph Welch, the Army's attorney in the hearings, made an apparent reference to Cohn's homosexuality. After asking a witness if a photo entered as evidence "came from a pixie," he defined "pixie" for McCarthy as "a close relative of a fairy."

Of course "Pixie" was also the name of a box-camera. That was meant as a double entendre.

During debates over New York City's first gay rights law, Cohn said homosexuals should not be allowed to be schoolteachers. Cohn died of AIDS in 1986.

So what's the point of this post?

Maybe it's simply to point out that it is almost impossible for conservative homosexuals to be open about their kinks in a political movement that enshrines "family values" and despises sexual perverts. These closet gay conservatives espouse the same values as other conservatives - even going so far as to oppose "gay rights." Maybe they are (as gay activists claim) "self-loathing" but that's almost beside the point.

The fact is that they are patriots who despise communism and socialism and do not agree with the left-wing gay political agenda. They lead double lives and stay "in the closet" because there is no place for them in the conservative movement. If they stay "in the closet", they are accepted but, by staying in the closet, they end up being sneaky and secretive and compromise their integrity (and may end up in bad situations like Craig). If they are openly homo, their careers in the GOP are finished. It's a Catch-22 predicament.

The whole "gay" thing is not going to go away any time soon. It's impossible to put that particular "pest" back into the Pandora's box of modernity. Whether you like it or not, the "gay life-style" is here to stay for the foreseeable future and it may be time to cut conservative homosexuals some slack. Many of them have been true allies in the battle against communism and socialism and the fight to preserve the American philosophy of individual sovereignty and self-determination.

Perhaps if Craig had been able to be openly homosexual, he would not have married a "beard" or had to resort to sleazy furtive sex in public bathrooms and could still now be a valuable ally in the fight for the Second Amendment and the war against our enemies who want to destroy our civilization.

Will homosexuals ever be allowed to openly serve the conservative movement? Probably not in my life-time but it will happen eventually. Homosexuality (as long as it is done discretely in private between consenting adults) is not the worst of sins - as most of the younger generation knows. Just look at the loyal following that the openly lesbian Tammy Bruce has among conservatives.

PS I do not regard the gay organization, Log Cabin Republicans as conservative. They are more "gay" than Republican but, for good or ill, they are active in the GOP.