From Daily Kos via Chuck Currie and others:
BlogActive, Raw Story and Hustler magazine (ugh) have apparently outed antigay Republican Rep. David Dreier of California.
I’m not happy with with the warfare that has consumed the nation’s political scene. I see limited benefit in outing secretly gay, but very stridently antigay, lawmakers. I am uncertain whether voters come to view the antigay hypocrisy as shameful — or whether the outing fuels feelings of shame about the sexual orientation itself. There is also a risk that the Republican replacements for any outed congressmen will exhibit even greater prejudice.
While some justification may exist for outing antigay lawmakers, I see almost no logic (beyond the extortion) in outing televangelist Paul Crouch as gay, exgay, bisexual or just experimenting. TBN is controversial for its greed-is-good theology, not for cultural warfare. A sex scandal would not discredit the poor theology or promote equal rights for all. Like a Paris Hilton video, a scandal would merely serve as a media sideshow, a distraction, a guilty pleasure for observers. And whether the sexual accusations are true or not, Crouch’s materialistic lifestyle makes him a poor role model for anyone seeking sexual or spiritual “redemption.”
Addenda: Hugo Schwyzer takes a somewhat stronger, more thoughtful stand against outing.
Addenda, Sept. 22: Crouch’s accuser, Enoch Lonnie Ford, told the LA Times that he was coerced into sexual activity with Crouch in order to keep his job. Christianity Today says TBN may have violated its confidentiality agreement with Ford.
True, I can’t recall Paul Crouch ever being involved in any anti-gay rhetoric but he does keep disturbingly close ties with anti-gay groups like Coral Ridge.
Based on what I’ve read from the story, I’d wait before drawing conclusions about Crouch. Just a lot of hearsay. Plus, there was only one incident in question, and he may have been drunk when it occured. One drunken homosexual incident does not a homosexual, or even a bisexual make.
With Drier, I don’t see any reason not to do this. He has a long, fully documented, history of anti-gay positions. Yet he also takes full advantage of the gains out people have made in his personal life, per the stories.
Where the Drier story gets interesting is the allegation that his lover also is/was his chief of staff. I believe there are laws concerning hiring sex partners that apply to congressional offices.
I have very mixed emotions on the outing of politicians ala Avarosis, Rogers, and Flynt. (nice company you keep there fellas)
As a black+white kind of guy, it’s terribly disconcerting. A juicy sex-scandal is one thing (crouch), but political extortions and character defamation by special interests are another.
It’s funny, you’d expect the right-wing to be outing queers in office, but for the left to do so…
Terribly conflicted, i am.
On another hand, it’s not terribly hypocritical for a person to enjoy “taking a walk on the wild side” while maintaining a healthy distance from those very things. Not every person who smokes an occasional joint is in favor of legalization. Not everyone who gambles in vegas on vacation would vote for a casino in their own city. And certainly not everyone who ever has same-sex is in favor of normalizing it across the board.
Marty,
This guy is not “taking a walk on the wild side” – he is living with his lover/chief of staff!
More importantly, Drier is one of those in Congress who has repeatedly voted for laws the discriminate against gay people – laws that basically say “if you are gay, you are a threat,” whether that threat is to the military, to children (he voted AGAINST allowing adoptions by gay people!) or to the nation.
If he is actually gay, as all signs seem to indicate, there are two possibilities.
1. He really believes gay people are horrible, so why should he then be allowed to be in Congress?
2. He is a lying hypocrit – again, why should he be in Congress?
Your analogy is far fetched Marty.
One can smoke a joint and refuse its legalization simply due to a lack of proper testing against driving impairment, but would otherwise decriminalize it.
Just because those who gamble in Las Vegas and don’t want casino in their town doesn’t mean they’re anti-gambling hypocrites (unless it’s Bill Bennett or other moralist types that denounce gambling).
As for those who live in same-sex relationship like Dreier, and then place sticks into the gears of other queer couples just to score points with the extreme right… well that is simply hypocrisy. And again, we’re not talking just about sex with Dreier here, we’re taling about a relationship with his Chief of Staff. I think they’re more deserving for a Roy Cohn award than Ed Shrock.
We have had more than a bit of discussion about Mike Rogers’s outing program over at the NYTimes gay rights forum. Some people are categorically opposed to it, some others are in favor of it, as long as the outing is limited to senators and congressmen who demonstrably vote anti-gay, and staffers who work for them.
As to
>I see limited benefit in outing secretly gay, but very stridently antigay, lawmakers.
the fact is that there might not be a strategic benefit from the outing–in that those who are outed would likely be replaced by people who would follow the same policies. That is, outing might not, in and of itself, be useful in gaining equal rights for gay people. On the other hand, as far as I’m concerned, there is nothing wrong with reaping a little revenge. Recent reports of a study done in Switzerland suggest that there may be an evolutionary basis for the desire for revenge when one has been wronged, see, for example, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/08/0827_040827_punishment.html In other words, payback can be a bitch to the victim, but it can also be so sweet to the perpetrator.
You might poo-poo the desire for revenge, but, quite frankly, given the fact that homo sapiens is a social species, revenge, like its evolutionary counterpart altruism, are necessary in a social species.
Jon Rowe – your comments above – in an attempt to defend Paul Crouch are ridiculous. As the “man of God” that Paul has claimed to be over the years, I would find it equally repulsive if it were in fact a “drunken” incident. The leaders of my church have always taught our members that consuming alcholic beverages is a sin and in turn leads to many problems. As for the allegations made by Lonnie Ford…like the old saying goes, there’s never smoke without a fire. If Paul Crouch did not participate in the sexual encounter, he should have fought it till then end rather than pay the guy $425,000 – which TBN officials claim DID NOT come from ministry money. PLEASE – where else did it come from I ask you? Paul Crouch is a minister – and all minsters I know earn their living from donations from the members of their church. What other job does Paul have that would give him that kind of money?? Investments? Then where did he get the initial money to make the initial investments to begin with? In my opinion, bottom line – Paul is trying to cover up his behavior which in turn would jeopardize his TBN network. The network that earns MILLIONS of dollars each year from poor Christian people all over the world who in turn are lead to believe they are damned to hell if they don’t support their ministry. And in turn, these people are betrayed by such conduct. I’m not saying homosexuality or bisexuality is wrong…we’re all individuals. But when a person such a Paul Crouch puts himself in the role of a Christian leader – he should honor his obligation and NOT participate in activities that he feels he can get by with by hiding behind the title “man of God.” PLEASE. Moreover, wait till the rumors hit about Jan Crouch and her obsession with younger men….and a few encounters in Nashville, TN she had that would rival a porn movie. PAUL & JAN CORUCH are no more of the word of God than Hitler. They are lazy individuals who decided they could make millions off poor people in the “name of God.” They should both try working for a living like the rest of us rather than taking the easy way out.
I’m not trying to defend Crouch. You mistook the point in my post. I simply meant that it would be a mistake to conclude that he were a “homosexual” or even a “bisexual” from one drunken homosexual incident. He could have just been a horny old straight guy that felt like getting off. For more on this, see my most recent post on “bisexuality” on my blog.
BTW: Wouldn’t shock me at all if Jan Crouch were in fact doing porno. She looks like an aging southern madam.
I can’t speak for or against the allegations surrounding Paul Crouch, but if the directors said the money did not come from “ministry money”, you should believe it. Whatever Crouch paid could easily have been from his own income or salary. If they pay him a salary, then it is his own private money, separate from the ministry’s money. Granted, it is probably a LOT of money, and a LOT larger than the average income of his followers, which is very sad. But it is, nevertheless, his own money to do with as he pleases. Intelligent people should investigate the line-item budget of any ministry they give to, including validating the character of anyone in a salaried position of leadership. If they fail to do this up front, they can’t easily cry afterward about it, but they CAN start giving more intelligently to their local ministries or directly to people who are sincerely in need of charity. Hopefully a time will come that all the televangelists and religious hucksters are losing funds and falling out of favor. Well, a guy can dream, anyway, eh? 🙂
Jon at 06:56 PM:
Eeewwwww…. I coulda gone all night without that visual in my head! Kinda like “Tammy Faye meets Elvira, Mistress of the Dark”.
🙂
Why are we in a rush to convict Paul Crouch without waiting to hear whether he really has homosexual inclinations or not? Shouldn’t we give him the benefit of the doubt? One drunken, tryst with an apprentice does not a gay man make! And Jan Crouch has never been publicly accused of any marital affairs…bad taste maybe, but not illicit sex.
I’ve deleted the most recent slur against Jan Crouch, and I’m disappointed in the preceding slurs about her. I am not a bit impressed with people who insult others based on their appearance.
(As an aside, I wonder why people think I don’t post my own picture on this blog?)
I think Jan Crouch is entitled to the same respect as Tammy Faye Bakker or any woman (or drag queen) who takes the Western obsession with makeup a bit too far.
That being said, I think it’s perfectly valid to criticize the grotesque distortions of femininity that have been committed by some conservative Christians and Muslims.
And I agree with Jon Rowe and Ernie that it’s premature to assume anything about Paul Crouch’s sexual orientation.
Mike, you are right, and I apologize for my comments regarding Jan Crouch, Tammy Faye, and Elvira. No malice or harm was intended.
The LA Times has a great story out today (part of a series) on how much money TBN raises and spends.
https://www.latimes.com/news/yahoo/la-me-tbn20sep20,1,3772231.story
Here are the stories they ran.
https://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tbnfcc20sep20,1,2777798.story
https://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-tbn19sep19,1,2144480.story
I agree with Jon Rowe and Ernie that it’s premature to conclude much about Paul Crouch’s sexual orientation, but I liked Jon Rowe’s way of phrasing it better. Words like “in a rush to convict” and “benefit of the doubt” accompanying the suggestion that he had a drunken tryst make it sound, to me, as if it’s fine to get drunk and have sex with your apprentice, but not fine to have homosexual inclinations. I think it’s the other way around; it’s fine to have homosexual inclinations, but not fine to get drunk and have sex with your apprentice.
On the other hand, I agree with Mike A. in not being wild about outing the guy, whatever he did or didn’t do with the apprentice.
I can not believe you people, if Karl Rove got this on a Democrat, Fox News would be on the air for weeks with there BS.
I live in So. Cal and this guy is a phoney. We can not even get him to stop illegal immigration.
Out him…and get him out. Is insane bigotry and Fascism must stop.
Very interesting things are happening in Southern California this year.
Conservative Republican David Dreier has a rating LOWER than Liberal Democrats Maxine Waters and Barbara Boxer on anti-immigrant websites.
The 24 year Congressman could lose his seat in a hard-core conservative district over the illegal alien issue. The gay outing will cost him a few votes but not many. The outing will diminish his political clout and reduce his standing in the Party.
His immigration voting record could cost him the election. He greatly underestimated the quiet anti-illegal alien groundswell in both the conservative and liberal camps. The costs are stunning: Closed emergency room, bursting schools, choking traffic, exhorbitant rents, depressed wages, overcrowding…
ad nauseum.
” Paul Crouch, is innocent until proven Guilty,
May God forgive the accuser of Paul Crouch, because he know not what he has done….May God
continue to bless TBN and the work of their hands
he and his wife Jan….they have come to far to turn around…and God is not finished with them yet……Many Souls have been Blessed and saved by
their Ministry….Many children Blessed…This too
will pass.
Crouch is innocent until proven “guilty” but TBN is not a Christian ministry. It is a ministry of mammon — it idolizes money.
Christian morality obligates TBN to repent of its materialism; sell its gold bathrooms, its collection of antiquities, and its marble buildings; and give the money to the poor.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for the rich to enter heaven.
The same goes for CBN and Pat Robertson’s industrial holdings, and Focus on the Family and its sizable land holdings and investments.
Uh Mike, in case you hadn’t noticed, there is no difference between Christianity as it is usually and customarily presented today and Mammon. There is a notion that Christianity has something to do with helping the poor, the sick, etc. Usually I have heard this called ‘loosers’ religion. Real Christianity, I am told by those who believe, is a winner’s religion.
Dalea is correct. There is little difference–other than the name–between what passes for conservative christianity today, and what was referred to as Social Darwinism a century ago.
I am having a hard time trying to believe all the gossip, but if what they are saying about Paul Crouch is true there are going to be a lot of unhappy Americans. Paul can do anything that he wants, but when we are supporting his television TBN and he is gay you have to do what you preach and I would call it lying and all I can say is he needs to straighten up before the return of the good Lord above or he will be left behind.
My prior religious tradition, Roman Catholicism, tends to view the Rapture as a newfangled heresy, as do many Christian traditions around the world.
However, let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Rapture is not a heresy and that it will happen. When it happens, it seems to me that those who are left behind would be those whose actions and beliefs created the conditions for doomsday. Specifically, people who cheated the poor locally or globally, despoiled God’s creation (the environment) locally or globally, or gave their governments blank checks to suppress, occupy, or kill civilians of other cultures, nations and faiths.
I believe it is ironic that some of the people who profess a belief in the Rapture are those who would be left behind, in theory, to face the consequences of their actions.
paul crouch homo issues don’t bother me at all- what bother me is that him and the rest of them televagelist crooks, whom lie to their teeths on tv and people still giving them money!
What about the very visable breast augmentation that has come from the viewers “precious little biddie grandmothers offerings”. It’s disgusting to everyone that Jan is soooooo obvious in how the viewers ttithes are being spent on all of the extravagant, flagrant lifestyles of the evangelists.
1) God’s Word says “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm”. It is not our place to pass judgment even if Ford’s allegations are true. We will be judged for how we handle the situation.
2) The ministry of TBN is still intact, despite these allegations. God can work in spite of our imperfections and sins (He does not excuse them, however).
3) It does not speak very well of Mr. ford that he took the buyout, assuming there was a buyout ofr him to take. If he was that distraught and really wanted the world to know the truth, no amount of money would make him shut up.