Gays in Government

Is He Light in the Loafers? Is She a Homo in Heels?

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Elena Kagan, the United States Solicitor General, don’t seem to have much in common. Though both are attorneys, Graham, Colonel in the US Air Force Reserve and buddy of Senator John McCain, is a Republican. Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School and Obama’s recent Supreme Court Justice nominee, is a Democrat. However, rumors about their sexual orientation surround them both, and the common question is, should it matter?

When then Congressman Lindsey Graham, ran for the US Senate in South Carolina to succeed Strom Thurmond in 2002, Dick Harpootlian, the Democratic Party chairman in South Carolina, put out a press release saying that Graham, was "a little too light in his loafers". Graham said it "was intended to slander me" and gay writer Andrew Sullivan said it was an example of "liberal gay-baiting." Harpootlian claimed he didn't realize “a little too light in his loafers” was a euphemism for homosexuality.

Recently, William Gheen, a zealot for strict enforcement of immigration laws and head of Americans for Legal Immigration, asked Graham to "tell people about your alternative lifestyle and your homosexuality." Graham supports immigration reform and Gheen said that immigration reform activists threatened to out Graham if he didn’t support comprehensive immigration reform rather than more restrictive laws and their strict enforcement.

On May 17, the Associated Press discussed questions about Kagan’s sexual orientation. "She’s 50, single and has a short haircut. Yup, definitely a lesbian. Or is she? And if so (though that appears to be a big "if"), so what? Should it matter?”

The article said that doubts about Kagan’s sexuality aren’t new but speculation about it is greater now than ever. Uncertainty about her sexual orientation increased when Obama announced her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court a week ago and it has been handled ineptly.

Kenneth Sherrill, an expert in the politics of gay and lesbian rights at Hunter College in New York said, "Even the leadership of the Democratic party is still uncomfortable handling the issue. They don’t know how to handle the question with a ’So what if she is?’" I agree. I was a strong supporter of gay, lesbian bisexual, and transgender rights when I was the Democratic nominee for Attorney General in South Carolina in 1998 and have continued to be on my radio show and in my essays.

Acceptance of gay men and lesbians is a reality now in our pop culture with television shows having gay characters. Increasingly, we are open about homosexual family members and friends.

But with gay public officials, coming out is a big deal, and same sex marriage is a potential issue for the US Supreme Court. The Obama administration appears to think the country is not ready for a conversation about a lesbian on the court.

The Associated Press was told by a White House official that Kagan was not a lesbian, after media reports on the issue surfaced when the administration was considering her. The Obama staffer provided the information only on condition of anonymity. A month before Kagan was nominated, the White House criticized CBS News for an online blog by a Republican, who said she might become the "first openly gay justice."

Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman criticized CBS, claiming it put out "false charges." Using the word "charges" sounds like it would be a bad thing if Kagan were a lesbian. Later LaBolt said he was talking about the blogger’s suggestions that Obama had an ulterior political motive to please gay rights activists who might help him get reelected. The White House launched a Kagan-is-not-gay campaign that was picked up by Maureen Dowd whose “Supremely Girly Girl” in the New York Times depicted Kagan as a man chaser.

Dowd wrote, “Ignore those wicked whispers about her sexual orientation. I cannot categorically assure you that she never flirted with another young woman when she was at Princeton. But I can categorically assure you that if she did, it would only have been to impress the cute guy in her Philosophy 101 seminar.”

Gay bloggers have implied that Kagan should make a public statement out of respect for herself and the gay community. "In a free society in the 21st century, it is not illegitimate to ask," wrote Andrew Sullivan, "And it is cowardly not to tell."

If Graham is gay he has a case of the J. Edgar Hoover syndrome. The legendary former FBI Director was a gay cross-dresser, according to credible reports, while engaging in homophobic rhetoric and gay bashing. Graham voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, an anti-gay bill, as a US House member in 1996. In 2004, he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, another gay bashing legislative initiative. The gay rights organization, Human Rights Campaign, gave Graham a 0% rating in every reporting period from 1995-2008, other than 1999, when he received a rating of 9% on Gay Rights issues. Graham has consistently denied basic human rights to gay and lesbian people. Let’s hope he isn’t another political hypocrite. Otherwise, his sexual orientation shouldn’t matter.

Why doesn’t the White House just say, “Elena Kagan is not a lesbian, but so what if she was one?” And Lindsey Graham should say, “I’m not gay, but so what if I was?”

Can Democrats Succeed in South Carolina?

"Party seeks to redefine itself" was the headline about the state of the South Carolina Democratic Party. The recent article by Gina Smith in The State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina was an introspective piece that featured opinions by some leading SC Democrats like former SC Democratic chair Dick Harpootlian. Harpootlian was chair in 1998 when Jim Hodges was the last Democrat elected Governor. In 1998 Democrats held four of the nine statewide offices after holding all nine in 1986. Besides being more aggressive toward the GOP, Harpootlian asserted that to win again "you’ve got to raise money 24 hours a day". He said the Party raised and spent $2 million dollars to get the vote out in 1998. The article failed to mention that much of the money spent to elect Hodges came from the video poker industry. Hodges' subsequent failure to support video poker ended their financial support of him which contributed to his becoming a one term Governor.

In recent years Republicans have successfully appealed to a historic tradition of South Carolinians to rally around a message of racial division, religious fundamentalism, and aggressive militarism. Big money for politics has responded to this message and it’s tough to win against big money. The media and the campaign industry turn political races into money raising horse races. The media makes money running political ads and political consultants line their pockets as well. I ran for several state wide offices against the big money on reform issues, including the 1998 general election when I was the Democratic nominee for Attorney General. The races were close, but I wasn’t elected because I made an issue of how things could be if money did not control every aspect of our daily lives.

Most big moneyed interests do not prioritize or even favor our government providing a good education for all our children, promoting jobs and a living wage for poor and unemployed people, or conserving our natural resources. They want to make as much money as they can as fast as they can, with every tax break they can get. Democrats will not be saved by selling out to large corporate interests, who only want government to help them maximize profits. The Republican Party has been the tried and true champion of corporate America for a hundred years and the enemy of organized labor and better pay for working people. They have been very effective in utilizing divisive issues like race and class.


Rep. Gilda Cobb Hunter, a powerful African-American Democrat in the SC House, told The State that working class whites wrongly view Democrats as the exclusive party of African Americans and liberals. She said this has been the legacy of the Republican Southern Strategy which was a planned effort to label Democrats as “tax-and-spend liberals, to say we had no family values, to define us as the party of color “, and to spread the word that “...the Democratic Party was not a party that understood or shared white people's values.” Democrats should be advocates for racial justice. The political power of African Americans was evidenced by Barack Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the SC Democratic Presidential Primary and the overwhelming vote in black precincts for Steve Benjamin, the African-American Mayor-elect of Columbia. African Americans can decide elections in SC and will turn out to vote when they are inspired to do so by good candidates. To the detriment of the Democratic Party, there are no black Democratic candidates running statewide this year.


Phil Noble, head of the SC New Democrats said that education should top the list of political priorities. Not a bad idea, but the SC New Democrats was founded by and has been affiliated with the conservative Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). The DLC supported welfare reform and NAFTA and opposed single payer, universal health care. The DLC contended that the Democratic Party should move to the right on national defense and was a strong supporter of the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, calling critics of the invasion the “loony left”. Will Marshall, co-founder of the DLC, says Democrats should distance themselves “from the anti-American fringe”.


For Democrats to succeed they don’t need to raise all the money they can from whomever they can, or shy away from a strong stand on racial justice, or become more conservative on such crucial issues as economic justice and militarism. Democrats should define themselves by working for significant campaign spending limits and by reaching out to everyday people of all races and religions and seeking peace, justice and prosperity for everyone.