Aaron Schock Indicted
I don’t know why I find this story so interesting, but I’ve been following it for a while, and this just transpired.
The Illinois congressman who resigned amid scrutiny of lavish spending – including remodeling his Capitol Hill office in the style of the television series “Downton Abbey” - was indicted Thursday on 24 federal counts, including wire fraud and theft of funds.
The 52-page indictment charges Aaron Schock with nine counts of wire fraud, five of falsification of election commission filings, six of filing false federal income tax returns, two of making false statements and one each of mail fraud and theft of government funds.
The reason Schock is even in gay news is because of his voting record on gay issues, and the “possible” hypocrisy that might go along with it. You can read more about Schock, here.
Yet the media treated longstanding questions about Schock’s sexual orientation and how it relates to his anti-gay voting record, questions that arose shortly after he took office and only came again and again, differently from questions about his official spending and how it relates to his fiscally conservative positions. Some of those questions, similar to those about the the office redecoration, were based simply on visual cues, what some saw as stereotyping based on his clothing choices; others were based on secondhand reports of sexual encounters. Again, these were not proof of anything, but they surely were leads. Schock has a terribly anti-gay record — he voted against repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” and has said he supports an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban marriage for gays — prompting the Human Rights Campaign to rate his support for LGBT equality at 0 percent.
Colby Keller Booted From “Capitol Hill”
I don’t follow this show much myself, but I do think the reason why Colby Keller got “booted” off is significant and newsworthy. It’s the first time I’ve seen this happen.
Meanwhile, the pseudo-intellectual adult film star Colby Keller was booted from the series and even cut out of the older episodes over his support for the racist and misogynist candidacy of Donald Trump. Having grown up in oppressive anti-gay Russia, the series’ creator Wes Hurley didn’t appreciate Keller’s praise for Vladimir Putin’s orange puppet. But don’t worry — there’s still plenty of eye-candy on Capitol Hill.
The comments are not kind to Keller.
NOM’s New Antigay Plan
For those who don’t know, NOM is short for The National Organization of Marriage. This group has been the biggest obstacle for legalized same sex marriage for a very long time. What they do on the surface is bad enough, but what they do beneath the surface is even more dangerous. That’s for a longer post, but this, below, is recent news.
Just when you thought they were gone for good, NOM is back with a “plan” to reverse our progress. How successful are they likely to be? Probably not very. Their money is drying up, and they have few avenues to pursue. But with this election, there’s going to be a brief jolt in their fundraising, and they’ll have new collaborators in Congress who may be able to force through some terribly anti-gay legislation.
I think after this election we’re going to have to pay attention to everything a lot more now. A lot of people are worried, and for good reasons. They have every right to be worried. I’m honestly not sure what to expect, and I don’t want to make any predictions right now because it might be too soon. But we are still fighting the fight, and that fight is far from over.
