...Perhaps it is time for Republicans and conservatives to ask themselves an obvious question: What makes the Republican Party -- and the conservative movement more generally -- so attractive to closeted homosexual men? ...Joe Conason at Salon
Well, let's look at why the right wing loves war. Hawks and "real men" move to the right. War is nothing if not an arena for the expression of homoeroticism, but there are others where being a man's man is celebrated. How about football? Greeks on campus? Evangelical churches? And the Senate, bless their souls. The evolution of puritanism and the great fears instilled in boys about the possibility of crossing the line from homoerotic bonding (highly approved) into expression of sexual interest (verboten).
Should it surprise us that given the combination of homoeroticism and repression, the increasingly rightwing Republican party would become a natural club for bi- and homosexual men? That given the ongoing conflict in our culture between freedom and puritanism, a senator is capable of being both a bisexual and a supporter of repression? Doesn't the Republican party in its latest formation offer both a form of homoeroticism and a framework for its expression?
