Senate candidate Ken Buck (R-CO): Gays are like alcoholics ("basically, you have a choice")

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Monday, Oct 18, 2010 08:30 ET
War Room
Candidate: Gays are like alcoholics
By Steve Kornacki



http://www.salon.com/news/politics/2010_elections/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/10/18/ken_buck_meet_the_press

In a debate televised nationally on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Ken Buck, the Republican nominee for Senate in Colorado, likened homosexuality to alcoholism, arguing that "birth has an influence over it" but that "basically, you have a choice."

The comment, instant fodder for the political media and blogosphere, came after a week in which revelations about Buck's refusal to prosecute a rape case as a district attorney in 2005 made headlines in Colorado and across the country.

Whether any of this will ultimately sink Buck's campaign against Democrat Michael Bennet remains to be seen. But the flare-ups illustrate vividly the risk that Republican voters have taken in nominating so many unconventional, Tea Party-championed candidates in key Senate contests.

The Colorado race is exactly the kind of contest that Republicans should be winning this year. The state voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but that was when just about every factor imaginable was aligned in the Democrats' favor. With Democrats in charge of the White House and Congress, a repeat performance for the party in 2010 was always unlikely -- and with joblessness and economic anxiety stuck at alarmingly high levels, the only real question has been how far Democrats would slide in '10 from the high water mark of '08.

[Ishoutandscream2]

1. Dear God, the Republican party are full of these nitwits

They belong in the 19th century.

[ThomCat]

11. Nitwit isnt the word you were looking for.

Bigot is the word you were looking for.

Anything less gives him credibility.

[SemperEadem]

2. no, xtianity is a choice. Being born gay is not a choice made by the individual

whose life will live it.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Why didn't the host ask him at what age did he conclude he wasn't gay?

:shrug:

[backscatter712]

4. K&R! Always happy to spread the word when a Rethug shoots himself in the foot!

:hi:

[YOY]

5. Cockoholics?

I mean I really have never been tempted with that "choice" but hey...glad he seems to think it's a choice.

[unblock]

6. gay is not a choice. the closet is the choice.

and that's what he's saying. fine you're born gay, but any decent homoesexual would spend their life if the closet.

hey, buck! bigotry is a choice, too, you know.

[AlecBGreen]

7. +1

He gets it wrong when he says "birth has an influence on it." A family member of mine IS gay and I know 100% for a fact he didnt choose it. He was born that way. Now, what he DOES with that is up to him. Does he embrace it or does he hide it in shame? He has the power to decide how to react to being born into that situation. So yes, in that way, technically, alcoholism & homosexuality are the same. We cannot choose the circumstances of our birth; we can only choose how we will react to them.

This guy sounds like a tool.

[CanonRay]

8. Being an asshole is a choice

which Ken Buck made long ago.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. Ironically, being an alcoholic isn't a choice either. You either have the predisposition or not.

If you don't, you may drink a couple of beers (or even get drunk) and be perfectly fine not to see alcohol for 2 years hence without any urges. If you do, you have to stay out of alcohol, just like albinos have to stay out of sunlight. It's organic.

[political_Dem]

10. Wow. Now that's the difference between a slip of the tongue and a vicious statement.

Buck deserves to have a protest against him for those caustic words. After all, such language is not to be tolerated.

I hope enough people wake up to work against Buck and Tancredo in Colorado.