Gay organizations silent as Virginia Democrat panders to anti-gay sentiments

With the Stonewall Democrats attacking anything our president says or does (whether or not it is related to gay issues), with HRC and NGLTF obsessed with abortion and with Log Cabin issuing bromides or blathering on about the radical right hijacking the GOP, it’s left to bloggers to take on Democrats who pander to people’s prejudices. In an e-mail this morning, blogger Eva Young alerted me to this post which reports that Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee for Governor in the Old Dominion has used a radio spot to accuse Jerry Kilgore, his Republican opponent, of “not being straight.”
As Mike Slaven notes in an editorial in the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily, “The Kaine camp fails to add the obligatory “with voters;” the ad simply observes, “Jerry Kilgore is not being straight,” period.” Kilgore, married with two daughters, has what some have called a “gay-sounding” voice (whatever that is) and has been described as effeminate.
If a Republican released an ad claiming that a Democrat with a similar voice and appearance was “not being straight,” you can be sure that all the leading gay organizations (including Log Cabin) would be taking him to task. Yet, today, all these groups are silent. If it weren’t for bloggers like Eva Young and Pam Spaulding, we would likely not hear of this anti-gay pandering.
Since LCR spends more time attacking the party to which it allegedly supports than it does to taking on the opposing political party, I expect them to maintain their silence on this. And I don’t think it will upset HRC or NGLTF too much either. They seem to see themselves as part of a broad “progressive” movement which defines Republicans as the enemy and excuses all kinds of behavior among Democrats, even actions and statements which play to anti-gay prejudices.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
UPDATE: Reading this post on GayOrbit, I realized that I had previously read about Democratic attempts to insinuate that Kilgore is gay. Back in April, on his blog, my friend Rick Sincere wrote that Kaine supporters would use innuendo to raise doubts “in voters’ minds about . . . Kilgore’s sexual orientation.” Check it out here!