U.S. Rep. Jared Polis seems like a really nice guy, and he was kind enough a few weeks ago to grant Dallas Voice an interview on relatively short notice in advance of his recent trip to Austin. I also think it’s worth noting that Polis gave up a chunk of his weekend to travel to Austin and speak to the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus.
My point is that I have nothing against Polis, and I’m not out to make him look bad. But as a reporter, when an openly gay congressman doesn’t know the status of a major piece of federal gay-rights legislation, it’s impossible for me to overlook. That’s why on Friday I pointed out Polis’ mistake in this post below.
In response to the post, and in an apparent effort to protect Polis, numerous people accused me of fabricating my report. One person who was in the room when Polis made the mistake even tried to claim that he didn’t really make it.
So, on Saturday, I posted a transcript of my tape, which you can read by going here. However, that still wasn’t good enough for some people. Last night, San Francisco blogger Michael Petrelis tried to further discredit my reporting by suggesting that, like Polis, I didn’t really know what happened to the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act.
Anyhow, all this brings us to this morning, when I have marshaled the technical support of Dallas Voice Art Director Michael Stephens, who has uploaded my tape of Polis’ mistake to the Web. You can listen to the tape by going here.
I am surprised that no one has commented on this yet. So I guess that I will.
Jared Polis is younger than I am. And I think, well I don’t know shit, so how the fuck is he supposed to know everything about all things gay… and be ready to answer any question about anything possible related to any of that at any given moment.
He is a rich gay business man who got elected in liberal Boulder. But he IS the first openly gay man ever elected to Congress in the history of the United States. So I think that deserves a little pause.
So maybe I am just old school, and I believe in loyalty and giving people honeymoons and giving them the benefit of the doubt and standing up for you own team….
I just thought that some of the responses seemed like too many people were just too happy to see Congressman Polis put his foot in his mouth. At least he didn’t put a cigar that Monica Lewinsky just pulled out of her vagina in his mouth.
Momentary:
I would tend to agree. I don’t think it was a particularly huge deal, which is why I chose to put in on the blog as opposed to in the newspaper. I did feel it was important enough to at least mention, given that he is, after all, a congressman, and that the hate crimes act is one of the top five pieces of pro-LGBT federal legislation. Personally, I hope that something good will come of this story. Maybe Polis will do a better job of educating himself, and LGBT groups will do a better job of educating him. In that way, I don’t necessarily see it as a negative. Unfortunately, the story became bigger than it should have been because certain people openly suggested that I made the whole thing up. At that point, I felt it was necessary to prove that he said it, which resulted in the follow-up posts. But I still feel strongly that it needed to be reported on in some fashion.
I vigorously disagree that this is not a big deal. Polis should not get a pass on this. Passing federal hate crimes legislation has been a priority for LGBT political organizers and grass roots voters for years. For him to not be aware of its current status is appalling. He is one of only three openly gay members of Congress. Can anyone imagine a black member of Congress in the 1960’s not being aware of the status of civil rights legislation? No.