Jeremy Durham and the Need to End GOP Hypocrisy

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about the real threat in public bathrooms actually being Republican lawmakers.  I cited a number of resources demonstrating claims that transgender individuals wanting the right to use the bathroom of their actual gender were no threat to the public.  Furthermore, states which have guaranteed this right to their transgender citizens have seen no incidents of public lewdness or assaults in restrooms by “perverts who just want to watch your daughters and wives pee.”  I also reported three verifiable cases in which Republican politicians were arrested for inappropriate behavior in public restrooms. 

Multiple news outlets including Gay Star News (@gaystarnews) and Gayetey (@gayeteyco) are reporting a new twist in the Tennessee Bathroom Bill drama.  And, once again, it’s not an LGBT individual behaving badly.

Tennessee State Representative Jeremy Durham has been exiled from the House by the state Speaker of the House, ordered to move his office out of the legislative headquarters, was ordered to turn over state owned electronics, and faces multiple investigations into incidents involving 34 different women including staffers, lobbyists, and fellow politicians.  House Speaker Beth Harwell has referred to Durham as a risk to women.

How does this connect with the hate bill industry plaguing these religiously obtuse states of late? 

Durham, who recently resigned as majority whip, was a key sponsor of Tennessee House Bill 2414 which would bar transgendered people from using the bathrooms of their gender.  Durham was a vocal proponent of the hate legislation, stating, that he believes the bill will protect females from unwanted sexual advances by men who dress up as women in order to gain access to women-only restrooms.

How’s that for irony?

But this is an ongoing theme with Republicans.  They create issues out of nothing, become vocal about it during election years, toe the party line whether they agree with the faux issue or not, and forget about the skeletons hanging in their own closets.  The holier, the more self-righteous, the more obstinate a politician becomes in these battles of “morality,” the more our corporate experience tells us that their own house, so to speak, is in a shambles.

Here are a few other examples of anti-LGBT politicians, claiming a moral and spiritual highroad in their politics, but trawling the gutter when the cameras were off and their families away.

Ed Schrock, two-term republican congressman, with a 92% approval rating from the Christian Coalition. Cosponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, consistently opposed gay rights. Married, with wife and kids. Withdrew his candidacy for a third term after tapes of him soliciting for gay sex were circulated.

Robert Bauman (R-MD) was campaigning for his fourth term as a Maryland Congressman in 1980.  A practicing Roman Catholic with a wife and child, he was one of the most vocal conservatives in a very conservative Congress.  He regularly rallied for old-fashioned values and attacked all supporters of abortion and homosexual rights.  His campaign looked rock-solid, before it changed overnight with a series of shocking revelations.  The public learned that Bauman had been charged with soliciting sex from a 16-year old boy he picked up at a gay bar, and that he had been the victim of an extortion scheme by a man who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with him.  This, combined with an alcohol problem (which did not seem to bother his fellow Congressmen before), doomed his political career.

In the Fall of 2009, yet another conservative Christian Republican fell from grace. Assemblymen Michael Duvall of Yorba Linda, CA. made the mistake of bragging before a "hot mike" to a fellow legislator, about his sexual conquests with female lobbyists, at "the head table" of a legislative hearing room, . This champion opponent of gay equality was a married man with two children who had earned a 100% rating for good Christian family values organizations. Now, he's joined the cavalcade of disgraced hypocritical Republican former politiicians.

(More information can be found here.)

Look, I get it.  People can be screwed up and screw up.  Horrible things happen.  I know these are exceptions and not the rule. 

I am also certainly not trying to draw a correlation between closeted LGBT people and poor choices like the ones listed here. 

What is at issue here is people grasping for power, achieving and sustaining that power deceitfully, and then using that power to hurt others—including future versions of themselves.  And I’m not just talking about LGBT equality and these ridiculous bathroom bills.  I’m also talking about access to mental healthcare because, when it comes down to it, these individuals as well as others I’ve mentioned before in my post about the legitimate bathroom concern—all of these individuals would have done well to have their mental health attended to especially if they’re assaulting women.  But I would wager two things:

1.     All of these individuals were marinated in a culture that not only was ignorant about LGBT people but ignorant about mental healthcare and therefore perpetuated myths and misunderstandings about depression and addiction.

2.     My guess is that each of these individuals (and others like them) spoke disparagingly of mental health care and worked to fetter access to it.  I wonder how many sponsors of the Tennessee Bill permitting professional counselors to violate the American Counseling Associations Code of Ethics by refusing to serve LGBT clients for religious reasons are closet cases themselves.  I’m certain Jeremy Durham’s name is on the “support” side of this dehumanizing action. 

Knock it off, already.  You’re hurting a large segment of our society, you’re putting the lives of children at risk by casting aspersions and denying them equality, respect, and love, and you’re hurting yourselves.  And by this I don’t just mean the “closet case politicians” acting against the best interests of the LGBT community so others won’t go through what they have.  I’m referring to the fact that everyone who draws a line and refuses to associate with the people on the other side of that line is hurting themselves by missing out on what is in that person or those people to improve the line-drawers. 

The hypocrisy needs to stop.  We get it.  Your life was miserable because you feared coming out to your parents or admitting you had a problem and you stressed when our preacher told you God would never love you because you were LGBT.  But that does NOT give you the right to weigh down the LGBT community by denying them rights and protections while you hang out in public restrooms or rent callboys off Craigslist while staying in seedy hotels.

And, seriously, all you Bible thumping sex addicts from Jeremy Durham to Josh Duggar?  Don’t doubt for a minute that in the 21^st century your dirty laundry and dark secrets won’t find the light of day and when all is said and done YOUR behavior, YOUR choices, and YOUR messed up theology will have done more harm than good.

Time to grow up, GOP, and face reality.  It’s no wonder 80% of Americans are fed up with the government.  You’re not solving problems—you’re creating them and it’s pretty clear their creation starts in your own lives and your own homes.  Maybe it’s time you let go of power and reconnect with your life.

Or maybe connect with your life for the first time.