David Dreier votes in favor of job discrimination against gays -- while hiring his boyfriend as the high-paid chief-of-staff in Congress and taking him on taxpayer-funded vacations to 25 countries.I want to ask David Dreier's boyfriend / overpaid-chief-of-staff Brad Smith: What goes through your head when you're being wined and dined and jet-setted around the world, while the man you're sleeping with pays you six figures a year and votes to allow job discrimination against other gay people?
"Let them eat cake"?
David Dreier (R-CA, chosen by Hastert to replace indicted Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader) has consistently voted against gay rights and AIDS funding (earning a "92% favorable rating" from the Christian Coalition) -- while he proceeded to shack up with his boyfriend / chief-of-staff Brad Smith and
pay him $156,600 a year (the maximum salary allowable by law) and vacation around the world with him, traveling to
at least 25 countries with his chief-of-staff Brad Smith on the taxpayers' dime:
Dreier and Smith have shown a taste for jet-setting together as well. During the past three years they have traveled to at least 25 countries together on the taxpayers' dime, spending 45 days abroad in locales that traditionally attract frolicking lovers: Italy and Spain, as well as a few destinations off the beaten path, including Sri Lanka, Micronesia and Iceland.
David Dreier is also another man-on-dog Santorum-type anti-Constitution nutjob in the making. He's already been quoted as saying that magazines that feature "
pregnant lesbians" should not be covered by the First Amendment. (But I'll bet he thinks
Spartacus and
Bob Damron's are just fine -- otherwise, how would he and his boyfriend find all those gay-friendly romantic vacation getaways?)
If David Dreier really is gay (which appears to be an "open secret" in DC and his home state of California), then he's a disgusting sellout.
He exemplifies the worst of the "I got mine, so fuck you" attitude among the right wing: On the one hand, he voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (which would have banned discrimination against gays in hiring) -- while on the other hand he had no problem hiring his live-in boyfriend and paying him $156,600 a year of taxpayers' money to be his chief of staff.
David Dreier is a hypocrite and a thief. He votes against equal hiring opportunities for gays - while lavishly paying his boyfriend using public funds.
I don't know whether Dreier is self-hating or whether he just thinks this is a clever way to suck up to the right wing and get rich -- but he's either pathological or unprincipled, and either way he's clearly too
compromised, conflicted, cowardly and probably criminal to hold a responsible government office.
It's fine if the Republicans want to have a gay person as House Majority Leader, and it might be fine if he wants to keep his private life private. But Dreier waived his right to privacy when he supported legislation limiting people's rights based on their private lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Dreier">Wikipedia: David Dreier{David Dreier's chief of staff, former housemate and rumored boyfriend, Brad} Smith collects the highest possible salary allowed by law for a committee staff member, and is reportedly the highest-paid chief of staff working for any House of Representatives committee chair.
David Dreier and his straight hypocrisyDreier {(R-CA) is a recipient of BlogActive.com's} "Roy Cohn Award, in recognition of 24 years of working against gay and lesbian rights while living as a gay man yourself."
...It appears that {Dreier chief-of-staff and rumored boyfriend Brad Smith} is the highest-paid chief of staff to any House committee chair. Smith's $156,600 salary is just $400 less than that of White House chief of staff Andy Card and Bush political commissar Karl Rove. By comparison, the chief of staff to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee makes $126,000, while the chief of staff to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee makes just $100,696.
...
I have always taken the view that outing a gay person should be approached with caution, and that in doing so one should strictly adhere to the Barney Frank Rule. As articulated by the openly gay Massachusetts congressman during another anti-gay GOP witch-hunt over a decade ago, when Frank threatened to out a number of gay-baiting Republican fellow congressmen, the rule insists that outing is only acceptable when a person uses their power or notoriety to hurt gay people.
Dreier clearly meets that standard, for his voting record is strewn with anti-gay positions. To cite just a few: He opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would have banned discrimination against gay people in hiring; voted for the gay-bashing Defense of Marriage Act; voted for banning adoption by gay and lesbian couples in the District of Columbia (3,000 miles away from Dreier’s district); voted to allow federally funded charities to discriminate against gays in employment, even where local laws prohibit such bias; and voted against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Dreier is not just a political homophobe but a heartless AIDS-phobe as well, voting against the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program designed to give shelter to the impoverished sick, and against funding for the federal ADAP program that furnishes the poor with the AIDS meds they need to stay alive.
--
Doug Ireland, LA Weekly, September 24-30, 2004 Congressman David Dreier: Gay & AshamedAfter a quarter century gliding through the raindrops, it's time for the influential Republican lawmaker to come clean about his homosexuality and the lethal hypocrisy he's employed in pursuit of power. ...
By 1998, Dreier’s homosexuality was at least tacitly acknowledged and accepted by high-level Republicans. Former California Senator John Seymour and an entourage of GOP golfers were enjoying the links during a fund-raiser at the Red Hill Country Club in Upland, California, when he was asked if Dreier would have to get married "in a hurry" if the congressman hoped to run against Senator Barbara Boxer that year. As his golfing buddies fell about the green laughing, Seymour broke into a big grin—but no one asked why.
"Well, no, I don’t think David would have to get married," the venerable politico mused with a wink. "He might down in Mississippi, but this is California. We’re a little more open-minded out here."
...
Dreier has enjoyed a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell pass from the newspapers in his district. Indeed, editors at the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin have gleefully bent over for the lawmaker, pimping out their reporters to dutifully play along with Dreier’s charade.
...
Dreier has amassed an antigay voting record so egregious that it has helped him garner a 92% approval rating from the Christian Coalition. Apparently the evangelical group failed to notice that Dreier’s roommate and constant companion is none other than Brad W. Smith, his appropriately entitled chief of staff.
Smith must be worth his weight in gold, as Dreier is paying his major domo the highest salary he legally can: $156,600 a year.
...
David Timothy Dreier himself has remained hunkered down, floating vague nondenial denials through unnamed surrogates on various Web sites. Attending the Republican National Convention in New York City, Dreier was confronted on satellite radio and asked if he was heterosexual. Apparently flustered, the legislator said he wasn’t there to "talk about that."
Dreier never has been "there" to talk about it, even as homosexuals have been fired, smeared and even murdered for simply being gay.
And that's the shame of it all.
...
SCREWIN’ ’EM: DAVID DREIER’S IN-CLOSET VOTING RECORD2004: Voted for the Marriage Protection Act.
2001: Supported legislation allowing federally funded charities to discriminate against gays and lesbians, despite local laws.
1999: Opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (as he had in 1996 and ’97).
1998: Voted to prohibit gays and lesbians in the District of Columbia from adopting children (D.C. is 3,000 miles from Dreier’s own district); opposed restoration of funding to the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS program.
1997: Opposed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act; opposed increases in state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs.
1996: Voted for the Defense of Marriage Act; opposed the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS program.
--
Michael Collins & Mark Cromer, Hustler MagazineFeatures Editor Mark Cromer first interviewed David Dreier in 1988, when the congressman told him that magazines which featured "pregnant lesbians" were not protected by the First Amendment. Anti-gay congressman David Dreier, said to be gay, "lived with male chief of staff"A Republican congressman from California who has repeatedly voted against gay rights measures is said to be gay himself, and at least three MediaNews Group newspapers are said to have instructed its reporters not to ask questions about the congressman's sexuality or how it relates to public policy.
Brad Smith, Dreier’s chief of staff with whom he is said to have lived, is paid an unusually high salary relative to the chief of staffs of other powerful congressmen, including Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
After RAW STORY ran an article suggesting that Congressman David Dreier, R-CA, might be gay, Hustler Magazine revealed that they planned a major expose exploring the conflict between the congressman’s sexuality and his positions on gay rights.
...
Smith’s high salary has also raised eyebrows. During the last reporting period, Smith made $156,600, just $400 shy of the highest paid White House staff member, Assistant to the President Karl Rove, who made $157,000. It is also $400 less than President George W. Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, who receives an annual salary of $157,000.
By comparison, the chief of staff to Bill Young, who chairs the even more prominent House Appropriations Committee, makes $151,956, more than $4,600 less than Smith. The chief of staff to Republican James Sensenbrenner, Jr., who chairs the House Committee on the Judiciary, made $126,000. The chief of staff to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, made $100,696.
--
John Byrne, Raw Story
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