- Republican Senate candidates Mark Kirk, left, and Andy Martin.
Houston Mayor-elect Annise Parker easily won her runoff election with former City Attorney Gene Locke earlier this month, despite some pretty virulent anti-gay campaigning by some in the Bayou City who didn’t like Parker simply because she is a lesbian.
So you’d think that Parker’s win would send a pretty strong message that gay-baiting is no longer a good way to win votes, or at least that such tactics were no longer a sure-fire method for winning. But apparently Andy Martin, a Republican candidate for President Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat, didn’t get the message.
Martin is a long-shot candidate in a field of six running for Republican nomination for the seat, and apparently he thought accusing the frontrunner, Mark Kirk, of surrounding himself with gays — and maybe even being gay himself — would help close the gap.
According to OpposingViews.com, polls show Kirk has 41 percent of the vote; his five opponents have 13 percent combined. Martin is at the back of the pack with about 2 percent.
On Monday, Dec. 28, Martin ran a radio ad saying there is a “solid rumor that Kirk is a homosexual,” a comment Martin attributed to conservative Republican businessman Jack Roeser. Martin’s ad also claimed that local conservative leader Raymond True said Kirk has surrounded himself with gay people.
Mr. True told the Chicago Tribune he never said Kirk was gay, although he did said “that there were some people on his [Kirk’s] staff that had a special orientation.” And while Mr. Roeser wasn’t available for comment, there is a podcast on his Web site that includes a line about the “solid rumor” that Kirk is gay.
Although Parker’s race in Houston was nonpartisan, both she and Locke have very solid Democratic credentials. Perhaps Martin thought that the Republicans would be more open to his anti-gay message. The fact is, though, OpposingViews.com reports, that the local GOP is working hard to distance itself from him, too. But that may be more about his other, shall we say, eccentricities, and less about his anti-gay position.
As it turns out, Martin has run for a number offices over the years and hasn’t won any of those campaigns. He has been sanctioned in federal court for filing hundreds of lawsuits, and was found unfit to practice law by the Illinois Supreme Court. He’s also known for his anti-Semitic views, having once called the judge in a bankruptcy proceeding against him a “crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race.” Martin also expressed sympathy to the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
GOP chair Pat Brady said Martin’s recent radio ad is “consistent with his history of bizarre behavior and often times hate-filled speech which has no place in the Illinois Republican Party,” according to OpposingViews.com. “Mr. Martin will no longer be recognized as a legitimate Republican candidate by the Illinois Republican Party.”
there is a “solid rumor that Kirk is a homosexual,”
Just what exactly is a “solid” rumor? Does that mean it’s a more reliable rumor than a rumor that isn’t solid? He instead should have said that there is perhaps a definite possibility that Kirk might possibly be a homo. Adding some clarification to the statement might perhaps have eliminated any potential ambiguity, wouldn’t you agree?
But what exactly does that mean anyways? Why is this such a perceived negative? Virginia Woolf was gay. Oscar Wilde was gay. Harvey Milk was gay. One of the best Roman Emperors of all time, Hadrian, the 14th emperor of Rome, is also widely presumed to be gay. Being gay doesn’t mean you’re stupid, unintelligent, or a bad leader. In fact, it would seem to be an indicator of the contrary!
Bottom line: being gay doesn’t disqualify you for office anymore than brown eyes or straight teeth. It’s simply another facet of a person, and Mr. Martin was out of line to raise the issue as a negative. If anything, it simply reminds voters of his incompetence, like when he made Anti-Semitic comments earlier in his career.
Call it “solid” or whatever you want, but the simple fact is rumors about Mark Kirk being gay have been widespread for years.
At least one pro-gay website goes further and says it’s an “open secret” that Mark Kirk is gay:
See: https://hillbuzz.org/2009/12/28/question-of-the-day-do-republicans-really-want-to-take-back-the-senate-in-2010/
And by the way, it’s Mark Kirk’s own campaign here in Illinois that is acting like being “accused” of being gay is some kind of slur. Me thinks he doth protest too much.