Demagogue

If you had to pick the U.S. Senator least likely to have an openly-gay person as a prominent member of their staff, who would you pick?

Personally, I would say Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA).

But like a boxer who just so happens to be a hemophiliac, Rick Santorum's Communications Director is a big ol' gay man.

Yes, one of the biggest homophobes in the U.S. Senate has an openly gay Communications Director, Robert Traynham. That means during Santorum's infamous "man-on-dog" comments, Traynham was there to handle the press calls. Not only that but Traynham has worked for Santorum for 8 years.

Scooped and summarized by PageOneQ, here are a few other examples:

Senator Santorum, who trails the presumptive Democratic nominee by double digits in a recent Quinnipiac College poll, has been a staunch opponent of lesbian and gay rights and one of the Senate's strongest supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment. The amendment would prohibit lesbian and gay couples from ever achieving marriage equality in the United States by requiring that all marriages be between one man and one woman.

"Isn't that the ultimate homeland security? To defend the sanctity of marriage?" asked Senator Santorum during last year's debate on the cloture motion to force a vote on the Amendment. The statement was seen by many gay and lesbian community members as a way to tie the struggle for lesbian and gay equality to the President's "war on terror."

In an interview with the Associated Press, the Senator suggested that the government has the right to prohibit gay and lesbian individuals from expressing love for each other physically. "The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that," said the Senator, "I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society."

I can understand how gay people can be Republicans, conservative, traditional, etc. I do not understand how a gay person could be so committed to supporting someone else who openly advocates that society should demonize them and have laws that discriminate against other people like them. Not just any person either, but a person in power, debatably one of the most anti-gay senators in the country. It just doesn't make any sense. Toss in the fact that he's also African-American and the whole thing is pretty incomprehensible.

Cognitive dissonance is clearly a very demanding and effective mistress-- for both Traynham and Santorum.

Personally I'm just waiting for this news to get around, I have a feeling that certain Santorum supporters won't find Santorum's close promximity to fresh gay cooties acceptable. We'll have to wait and see.

Hmmm...I wonder if Casey's people know?

Addendum: Apparently Traynham was rather busy defending Santorum's baseless blame-Boston-for-priest-on-child-molestation position yesterday:

Asked to explain the proper context for Santorum's comments, Traynham said that "what the senator was talking about was the whole sexual revolution in the 1960s and '70s, and how that unfortunately created a culture where these unfortunate sex abuse scandals occurred."

The abuse, Traynham said, "was particularly worse in Boston and the reason why, according to the senator, is because of some of the social institutions that call Boston home. When you take a look at Harvard University and some of the other universities in Boston, I think it's an open secret that there is a liberal bias, unfortunately."

That just about answers my questions about how he could work for Santorum-- the devil has his soul. I wonder what he exchanged it for?