Mehlman's Coming Out Dance: Now Free to Enlist Gays Against Islamic Jihad

He insisted, too, that President Bush “was no homophobe.” He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called “the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now.”

He said that he “really wished” he had come to terms with his sexual orientation earlier, “so I could have worked against [the Federal Marriage Amendment]” and “reached out to the gay community in the way I reached out to African Americans.”

“What I will try to do is to persuade people, when I have conversations with them, that it is consistent with our party’s philosophy, whether it’s the principle of individual freedom, or limited government, or encouraging adults who love each other and who want to make a lifelong commitment to each other to get married.”

These quotes from the Ambinder post indicate Ken Mehlman (“the most powerful Republican in history to identify as gay”) still has a way to go in reconciling his sexual and his political orientation.

These photos of the-then RNC Chairman, taken at a Georgetown club, were submitted anonymously and published by Wonkette (with innuendos) in late November 2005.  If, after Mehlman’s coming out, the pictures  elicit sympathy for Ken’s identity confusion, I’m afraid that empathy also serves the political and PR interests of a political ideology Ken’s still pushing fostering division, exclusion and scapegoating of “the other.”

(updated 10 am PST – added conclusion)