In or Out

So, we're still talking down here in beautiful South Carolina about whether or not we'll impeach the philandering, lying, stealing governor we have now and replace with him with one who, many people swear, is a big old queen.

Cheater? Homo? That's the debate, ridiculous as it sounds.

And now comes word that the smear campaign aimed at Andre Bauer about whether or not he's a Friend Of Dorothy, was started by none other than the adulterer, the cheater, the liar, and the thief, Mark Sanford. Word has it that Mark Sanford thinks the people of South Carolina would rather have a Bible Thumping adulterer than a Bible Thumping homo-sexshul.

Of course, these are all just rumors, but, hell, rumors are fun.

Mark maybe didn't start the Gay Andre story and maybe Gay Andre isn't gay.

See, Jake Knotts, who loathes Mark Sanford almost as much as I do, swears that Andre Bauer isn't gay, but that Mark is spreading that rumor to keep people from begging the State House to impeach him. Knotts, a Republican state senator, wrote to fellow members of the state legislature last week and accused Sanford and his allies of spreading rumors that Bauer is gay—though that claim came from blogger Mike Rogers earlier in the week.

Says Jake Knotts: “As a former target of a false rumor started by the Sanford Camp I can tell you with absolute certainty this attack was orchestrated on behalf of Mark Sanford, either directly or indirectly, and financially subsidized by him or one of his many ‘front-groups.”

Knotts apparently has, ahem, first-hand experience with the fact that Andre Bauer is straight, because, as he says, “I have known Andre since he was eight years old. Ain’t a homosexual bone in his body. That boy is a good boy. It’s a just an attempt to prevent Andre from become governor.”

Not a homosexual bone? I mean, I've heard of the gay gene but now we've got a gay bone? This homosexuality stuff is a lot of work, trying to remember all the rules and the bones, etc.

And why is that Knotts thinks Andre is a straight shooter because he's a "good boy"? Does being gay make you not good? See, from where I stand, looking up homosexual bone in the dictionary, gay is good, sometimes great, sometimes annoying, but it isn't bad.

Got that, Jake?

See, you can say Mark Sanford is trying to smear Andre Bauer's good, non-homosexual name by whipping out the gay card, but you, my dear fellow, are smearing the entire gay community.

And that ain't good.

Now, before I go, let's give Maybe-Gay-Maybe-Not Andre Bauer the last word on the gay question, or the gay bone: “I don’t think it’s a proper question. I think it’s a little bit ridiculous and it’s sad that politics has gotten to that. But if somebody had a question I don't have a problem with going ahead and airing it and getting it out of the way because I don't want that to linger, much like this other problem is lingering. I want to move forward. I want to talk about real issues, how to get improved job growth. How you get education to a better level than it is now, how you fix the budget problem that we've got — not continue to dwell on some silly question in the first place."

Now, this is where I have a problem with Andre. It isn't a silly question if, in fact, you are a closeted gay man who has spent his political career working to deny the same rights and privileges to gay Americans that other opposite-sex marrying Americans take for granted.

If you're gay, then shame on you for your self-loathing.

If you're not gay, then shame on your for your backwoods holier-than-thou attitude.