Florida Gov. Charlie Crist gives different answers on gay adoption
As a part of his statewide tour for “Explore Adoption Day,” Crist spoke to a crowded courtroom at the Duval County Courthouse about the increase in adoptions throughout the state.
Crist and other adoption advocates talked about the need for even more adoption, especially for older children who have a difficult time making it out of the system.
When he was running for governor in 2006, Crist told The St. Petersburg Times, “My position is the traditional family is the best to adopt.” He reaffirmed that statement on Wednesday in Jacksonville.
See Florida Gov. Charlie Crist gives different answers on gay adoption
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NPR Spikes “Outrage” Review For Outing Gay Republicans
NPR has spiked a review of “Outrage” for naming some of the politicians outed in the film.
Citing a policy of protecting the privacy of public figures, an NPR superior cut the names of current Florida governor Charlie Crist and former Senator Larry Craig from the review after writer Nathan Lee and his assigning editor at NPR had agreed on the text of the piece. However, a photo of Larry Craig accompanies the review and says that the former Senator is a subject of the documentary. It also hints strongly at the inclusion of Crist in the doc.
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Charlie Crist Senate Run May Face Conservative Revolt
Politico:
The expected by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist that he’s running for the Senate would seem to be a rare bit of good news for beleaguered Republicans.
But while Crist is a brand-name recruit with sky-high approval ratings and bipartisan appeal, his path to keeping the seat of retiring Sen. Mel Martinez in GOP hands has at least one significant roadblock: Sunshine State conservatives. See Charlie Crist Senate Run May Face Conservative Revolt * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Economist: Is Outing Of Closeted Political Figures A Useful Tactic?
KIRBY DICK’S documentary “Outrage“, which opened nationally last week, has turned gay activists’ controversial tactic of exposing closeted public figures—in this case, closeted Republicans perceived as advancing anti-gay policies in their public lives—into a feature-length film. The movie targets an array of elected officials and prominent GOP operators, but of particular interest is its focus on Charlie Crist (pictured with wife), the governor of Florida, who has thrown his hat into the 2010 race for the US Senate, with the support of much of the party establishment.
As if to confirm the film’s thesis that the press go out of their way to help preserve this sort of charade, National Public Radio opted to edit their reviewer’s piece on the movie to remove the names of politicos identified as closeted. At this point, as several others note, this seems rather quaint—and indeed, like an endorsement of the notion that there’s something especially awful about being accused of being gay. Nor do the network’s protestations that they simply avoid traffic in gossip and rumour hold up: They are only too happy to pass along unconfirmed reports about the sex lives of entertainers.
Which is odd, when you think about it, since while the public is clearly interested in the romances of musicians and movie stars, it’s hard to claim there’s a genuine public interest served by poking into their private lives. When it comes to public servants, however, we generally accept that it’s perfectly legitimate to scrutinise their private conduct to the extent it’s relevant to assessing the sincerity of their professed beliefs or the veracity of their public personas. Usually the controversy over “outing” has to do not with elected officials, but with high-level staffers, who have not volunteered themselves for scrutiny in the same way as political candidates. In practice legislative directors and analysts too yield significant public power—legislators are important people, and can’t be bothered with writing and reading bills themselves—but “Outrage” limits itself to indisputable public figures. If the claims about them are so poorly sourced as to constitute plain slander, the film shouldn’t be rewarded with any kind of attention; if they’re at least credible, one may as well save the listeners a Google search and say what they are.
See Economist: Is Outing Of Closeted Political Figures A Useful Tactic?
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Taking aim at the hypocrisy of closeted politicians
Does a politician’s right to privacy trump the wrong of hypocrisy? Documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick thinks not.
He doesn’t care about the sex lives of politicians. But he cares that when a pol’s sexual orientation is secret, often shame and self-hatred color his voting record. Dick is outraged when closeted gay politicians vote against gay marriage, against the right of gays to adopt, and against funding for HIV/AIDS. He’s so outraged that he has made a movie exposing the disconnect between what these men practice and what they preach.
Despite its title, Outrage is calm, riveting, and provocative, taking pride in officials who come out and and taking aim at those who remain closeted. The film saves most of its ammunition for the media’s “orchestrated conspiracy,” creating a double bind that perpetuates the double lives of these men. Yes, they are all men, and with the exception of Ed Koch, former New York mayor, all are Republicans. (Why should we care? One, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who recently married a woman, is a leading GOP candidate for president in 2012.)
Dick, whose prior documentaries include This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a trenchant and amusing take on the double standard of the motion-picture ratings board, is ambivalent about his role in “outing” closeted politicians.
Beltway blogger Michael Rogers, on hand to furnish color commentary on who’s in the closet and why, considers the question of whether outing is a form of sexual McCarthyism. Is it the closeted practice or the outing that perpetuates the climate of shame? Certainly, whenever a James McGreevey or Eliot Spitzer admits his hidden sexual practices, he must take the media walk of shame.
Rogers’ answer to the chicken-or-egg question is that the goal of outing is to expose political hypocrisy, not sexual orientation. To this end, Dick provides each closeted politician’s voting record on gay rights; most of them show that he is voting against his own self-interest. See Taking aim at the hypocrisy of closeted politicians Philadelphia Inquirer * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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‘Outrage’ comes at pivotal moment in gay rights fight
“Outrage,” the biting new political documentary by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick that opens today in Los Angeles, candidly explores the murky intersection between private lives and public conduct.Dick’s thesis is that Washington’s closeted homosexual lawmakers, most of them members of the GOP, staunchly — often stridently — oppose equal rights measures for gays because they’re anxious to conceal their own sexual orientation. He also shares a sentiment voiced by openly gay Democratic Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts who told the filmmakers that his Republican colleagues have “a right to privacy, but there’s no right to hypocrisy.”So in that spirit, the film does what no mainstream cinematic treatment of this issue has done before: It names names.
All the law and policymakers identified have previously been “outed” in print or online, but most either deny being gay or simply decline to comment on privacy grounds. Among those named in “Outrage” are veteran California Rep. David Dreier, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, ex-Louisiana Congressman Jim McCrery, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and ex-Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, whose notorious 2007 arrest on suspicion of lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport men’s room effectively ended his political career.
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Bigot aLert: Forida Plans To Appeal Gay Adoption Ruling
This isn’t much of a shock, but the Florida Attorney General’s office says it is planning to appeal last months ruling by a Miami judge that overturned Florida’s gay adoption ban. Technically, I believe, they could have just let it be, but that never seemed likely. On one hand, yes, the ruling could be overturned, on the other, a Florida Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay adoption would solidify the overturn of the ban and could provide valuable precedent for Gay right’s in Florida. Plus, like we’ve mentioned, this is shaping up to be a very different case than the last time the Supreme Court upheld the ban in 1995. So the State is going to have to come up with a stronger case. Though, by the time this does go up to the supreme court (if it does), Charlie Crist may have made two more right-leaning appointments to the bench. See State Plans To Appeal Gay Adoption Ruling Miami New Times
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