Duke’s House of cards
The resignation and guilty plea of Duke Cunningham is the latest morality tale played out among closeted congressional Republicans, with a familiar moral.
Washington Blade
By CHRIS CRAIN
Dec. 02, 2005
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What you won’t read about in these mainstream press accounts is the other double life led by the closet case, Duke, the anti-gay conservative. Cunningham, who is married with grown children, has admitted to romantic, loving relationships with men, both during his Vietnam military service and as a civilian. That was the remarkable story that this publication reported two years ago, when Elizabeth Birch, the former Human Rights Campaign leader, inadvertently outed Cunningham at a gay rights forum.
Birch never mentioned Cunningham’s name, but she talked about a rabidly anti-gay congressman who asked to meet privately with her in the midst of a controversy over his use in a speech on the floor of the House the term “homos” to describe gays who have served in the military. Alone with Birch and an HRC staffer, the unnamed congressman shared that he had loved men during his life. In telling the story, Birch offered up a few too many details about the closeted congressman.
A few Google searches later, the Blade reported that it had to be Cunningham, whose career was pockmarked with bizarre gay pronouncements, including a reference to the rectal treatment he received for prostate cancer, something he told an audience “was just not natural, unless maybe you’re Barney Frank.” There’s every reason to believe Birch’s inadvertent outing, even as Cunningham denied it through a spokesperson.
This is, after all, a man without principles, who could “love men” in private, all the while condemning gays in speeches and in congressional votes. Little surprise that he could live a second double life, in which he sold those unprincipled votes to the highest bidder. The sad story of Cunningham’s double lives was destined to come to an ugly end, just as it did for Ed Schrock, another anti-gay Congressman who was outed, if not so inadvertently. Caught last year leaving explicit voice messages on a gay phone hookup line, the married Virginia Republican abruptly announced he would not seek re-election.
~snip~
http://www.washblade.com/print.cfm?content_id=7073
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