Maybe They Were Saying "Aunty Gay"

I'll admit, I had a visceral reaction when I heard congressman "Duke" Cunningham interviewed on the radio, weeping and feeling sorry for himself, now that he had been caught ripping off the taxpayers, taking bribes, escalating political corruption to a new high. You didn't see him weeping a whole bunch before he got caught, did you?

Well, actually, I was wrong about that part. He was known as a bit of a weeper. In an article that might deserve the award for Most Inaccurate Headline, the Washington Post said this week:

For those who have observed Duke Cunningham's behavior in Washington for 15 years, especially those who have felt his scorn, his remorseful exit from the House last week carried no surprises. Since his early days in Congress, Cunningham's behavior has been predictable: ad hominem attacks followed by tearful apologies.In one now-famous incident, Cunningham and Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) got in a shoving match over sending troops to Bosnia. Moran confronted Cunningham, triggering a partisan melee among other members -- and Cunningham fled.

Moran found him crying in the cloakroom. Cunningham Friends Baffled By His Blunder Into Bribery

The story is headlined "Cunningham Friends Baffled By His Blunder Into Bribery," but the whole thing is about how not-surprised his friends were.

The thing is, for such a tough guy, war veteran and everything, you wondered, why's he running off "crying in the cloakroom?" Sheesh, the "real" Duke would be ashamed.

Recently a reporter asked me why some people who are so paranoid about gay people. That wasn't how they put it, but essentially that's the question: what motivates those people? I don't even try to answer the question, but really, that's the big question, isn't it? We have heard the nastiest things said here in Montgomery County, referring to gay people as "deviants" and "sodomites," and saying the worst things about them. It is clearly an orchestrated attack, with national organizations throwing this stuff around like misanthropic zoo-chimps and the local mouthpieces repeating it; there's something behind it, something that drives them -- but what?

Why do they care?

I can name you quite a few people who spend all day, every day, saying nasty things about gay people. They do it for a living, and are paid well for it. But ... is that what you want to be when you grow up? Or do you just end up like that?

"Duke" Cunningham, the Republican congressman-slash-convict was one of those people.

Insider-blogger Wonkette reminds us of some things, under the title, "Duke-stir Cries, Clutches Pearls." She writes:

[The Los Angeles Times] runs down Duke Cunningham's lavish lifestyle. Lavish, alternative lifestyle. The Air Force veteran apparently underwent a kind of, uhm, change at some point: "Personally, his taste ran to country music and cowboy novels - which made the French antiques and Oriental rugs he took from contractors seem anomalous." Anomalous? We think the Washington Post was more on target: Duke had "surprisingly delicate taste." Gay taste. And, well, perhaps there's was an element of protesting-too-much when he derided the Dems for being the ones who let "homos into the military," let alone entertaining ladies on the Duke-stir boat all Ron Burgundy-style.

And then she reminds us of a curious incident a few years ago.

There was a story about Cunningham in the Washington Blade, the local gay newspaper, in 2003:

It began as a remarkable vignette about a virulently anti-gay congressman who reached out in private to gay activists with questions about how people know if they are gay. But last month, retold before an audience of nearly 200 at a Gay Pride town hall meeting, a remembered encounter from eight years ago has raised questions about whether the leader of this country’s largest gay rights organization has on several occasions effectively outed a member of Congress.

...

Birch did not identify the congressman but said the meeting took place a short time after the congressman created a controversy in 1995 when he referred to gays as “homos” on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Media reports and other background facts indicate that Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.), an archconservative from San Diego, fits many of the details in Birch’s story. Birch denies speech outed anti-gay congressman

Now, come on, you must agree that this is at least ... strangely interesting.

The news media in San Diego reported at that time that in a speech on the floor of the House, Cunningham decried the presence of “homos” in the military. He appears to be the only member of the House to call gays “homos” on the House floor at that time, and most likely at any time since then, according to a review of news media reports and the Congressional Record.

And of course, this followed:

Harmony Allen, Cunningham’s press secretary, said Cunningham never met with Birch and never made any such comments about gays or his feelings toward men.

“He has never had a conversation with that woman,” Allen said. “The meeting did not take place.” Allen added, “He is a heterosexual.”

There is one more little piece that I need to mention. That is a study done by researchers at the University of Georgia a few years back. Here's how it's described at ReligiousTolerance.org:

A study that appears to reveal a major cause of homophobia was completed at the University of Georgia in 1996. It involved 64 white men, none of whom had engaged in homosexual acts during their lifetime. Their sexual fantasies involved only women. 35 of them were rated homophobic; 29 non-homophobic. For the purpose of this study, "homophobia" was defined as a negative emotional reaction (e.g., fear, anxiety, anger, discomfort) to homosexuality. It was measured by a questionnaire called the Index of Homophobia. Each was shown three types of X rated videotapes: heterosexual, lesbian and gay. A plethysmograph measuring device (affectionately called a "peter meter") measured the circumference of their penis as a gauge of sexual arousal.

The two groups exhibited similar arousal when they viewed 4 minute samples taken from one heterosexual and one lesbian movie. But they responded differently to the male homosexual clip:

Degree of Tumescence:  Insignificant Moderate  Definite 
Homophobic men               20%        26%        54% 
Non-homophobic men           66%        10%        24% 

The researchers concluded that these data are consistent with the belief that most homophobic men have repressed homosexual desires. An alternate, but much less likely, explanation is that the homophobic men's erections were caused by anxiety during the experiment.

Further research is needed to clarify the results and to answer questions such as whether these results would generalize to homophobic women.

Lots of people are uncomfortable about sex, and really a lot are uncomfortable around gay people. I figure that's because it's a relatively uncommon thing, and because our society has, until recently, been more or less quiet about it.

But some people are really freaked out by it. Can't get that disgusting stuff out of their minds.

I'm not saying what I think, just telling you what I saw on the Internet.