“Either this guy believes his party is not serious and is totally Machiavellian in its position, or you know, as David Brock said in his great book ‘Blinded by the Right,’ there’s some sort of self-loathing or something. I was more sad for him.”
— Bill Clinton on Arthur Finkelstein, the gay Republican consultant who recently married his male partner and is planning to fund a Swift-Boat-style ad campaign against Hillary Clinton in her 2006 Senate race.
This phrase from Saturday’s New York Times article about the marriage made me ill: “One of Mr. Finkelstein’s associates, who declined to speak on the record, citing Mr. Finkelstein’s desire for privacy, said Mr. Finkelstein did not view his marriage as a political statement…”
Well, no shit. Do people really think that gays want to get married in order to make a political statement? As I’ve said before, this is not about politics. It’s about people.
But politics is nothing but people. I know in one way, Rosa Parks really did just want to sit down, but she knew that at that time and place, wherever she sat would have political implications. The bus itself had become political.
Now, it’s marriage that has become political. There’s no way to talk about same-sex marriage, or enter into one, that isn’t political. Most of the people at San Francisco City Hall last year knew it was more than likely their certificates would be declared invalid, but they went ahead anyway. That was pure political statement.
Finkelstein doesn’t want his marriage to be seen as a political statement because he doesn’t want to dilute his Republican cred. He wants his cake (marriage rights gained solely through progressive political activism) and to eat it (whatever he feels he’s gaining by riding the Conservative Mystery Train). Well, Mary Cheney can’t have both, and neither can he.
SING OUT LOUISE!
Okay, I should have said that gays don’t get married solely to make a political statement. Those San Francisco couples wouldn’t have gotten “married” if they weren’t been in love (or wanted the benefits, or wanted a stable environment for their children, or whatnot).
But benefits, a stable environment for children and even love constitute a political statement in a culture that by and large prefers to regard us as rutting wildebeasts
I have to actually disagree in this instance, although I realize its based on this man’s “associates” rather than his direct action.
If his marriage wasn’t a political statement, why are we all concerned about giving out his husband’s name? Legal marriage, by definition, is public, legally discoverable, and hardly something that is an issue of “privacy”. Marriage is by definition a public declaration, requiring witnesses and government sanction.
So the notion of a marriage where everyone dare not give out the spouse’s name is suspect to me. It could easily be a political statement. It wants the shock value of a gay conservative getting married without the public statement that marriage inherently requires.
Even if I am wrong, whats up with nobody wanting to acknowledge the spouse? It seems so icky.
Finkelstein’s husband is Charley Manning.
This is so typical of the gay Republicans I have met. They hate liberal social activism, but then demand access to the civil rights that the activism has provided (marriage, freedom from sodomy laws, ability to go to bars, etc.). They don’t see the connection between the two.
So I googled Mr. Manning. He is the guy who ran Weld’s campaign when Weld lost to Kerry in the 1996 Massachusetts Senate race. I lived in Mass. at the time, and it was the one time when I voted that I felt proud to be a voter. Both Kerry and Weld were class acts through the campaign, even down to the end when the two met after the election was over for a beer.
I always liked Weld. He is one republican I would have voted for, too. My choice in the end was that Weld said he would remain governor if he lost. As it turns out, Clinton, in a really smart move, nominated Weld to be Ambassador to Mexico. Weld speaks fluent Spanish and really has business sense. So he quits, and his nomination never gets a vote because of a pissing match with Jesse Helms:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n16_v49/ai_19722920
Somehow I always think of northeastern gay republicans as having a legit point of view. Its the ones in the red states I don’t get.
When informed of the creation of the “Museum of Modern Art,” Gertrude Stein opined “You can be a museum or you can be modern — you can’t be both.”
That goes double for “Gay Republicans.”