Ed Farthing, a Republican, a retired Hickory lawyer and executive director for development for Equality North Carolina, a gay and lesbian advocacy group, got dissed big-time by the North Carolina Republican Party when he sent in his $75 for a table at the state party convention this weekend, where he intended to set up a display for Log Cabin Republicans. He wanted to organize a North Carolina chapter of the gay Republican club. The chair of the state Republican Party, Ferrell Blount of Pitt County, took one whiff and returned the check with a curt note saying that the Party of God couldn't very well allow -- ick! -- open gays at a convention where there was going to be fire 'n' brimstone about the abomination of homosexuality from the pulpit. (Closeted gays, however, will be there in great profusion, some of them loudly denouncing gay marriage from the microphone.) (Raleigh News & Observer article here.)
"I reviewed what the Log Cabin national Web site was advocating and promoting, and in my opinion," Blount said, "it is diametrically opposed to the values of the North Carolina Republican Party." That is to say, gay Republicans are advocating equality, personal freedom, human dignity, and an unwillingness to use hate and fear as a political wedge, all of which the North Carolina Republican Party is diametrically opposed to.
"As state party chairman," Blount said, "I support the definition of marriage as being a union sanctioned by God between a man and a woman. That is what the Republican Party talks about in its platform and will talk about this weekend."
Ah, sanctioned by God! And so many rich white Republican males can thank God that He also recognizes when the old bag He initially sanctioned has outlasted her charm and allows for a second and maybe even a third trophy wife, also sanctioned by God. Why, without the sanctioning of God, Blount alleges, we couldn't do half the crap we do!
The gay retired lawyer from Hickory meanwhile is burnt: "It appears to be you must be a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant and married for the Republican Party to pay any attention to you. I think that is a good 1950s voter profile."
No word on whether the lawyer will go forward with trying to organize a chapter of Log Cabin Republicans in North Carolina. He could probably get all three gay Republicans in the state together in a closet, which is exactly where Chairman Blount obviously wants to keep them.
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