Homosexual press hot to 'out' Bush figures

WASHINGTON – Disclosures that an alleged homosexual escort working for a pro-Republican website was granted access to the White House press room has led to efforts in the nation's homosexual press to "out" top-ranking Bush administration officials and GOP leaders based on uncorroborated, undocumented and unnamed sources.

In the last week, reports in New York's Gay City News and 365Gay.com and other homosexual-friendly publications and blogs have made specific allegations about individuals based exclusively on unnamed sources and rumors and playing off the sensational revelations about Jeff Gannon – by daylight a credentialed "reporter" covering the White House for two politically partisan websites, while allegedly moonlighting as a $200-an-hour male escort and purveyor of explicit websites like HotMilitaryStud.com and MilitaryEscorts.com. Those sites have since been removed from the Internet.

It turns out Jeff Gannon was a pseudonym and alter ego for Jim Guckert, the name under which Gannon allegedly posed for pictures on those sites and advertised his services. He resigned his position with Talon News and GOPUSA.com following the disclosures by bloggers.

The central target of the reports in the homosexual press is White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, a figure who regularly called on Gannon at press conferences. Most of the reports recycle one last week by Raw Story, published by John Byrne, 24, who claims to have worked as a local reporter for the Boston Globe and as a Washington bureau reporter for the McClatchy newspapers, and seems to specialize in "outing" Republican politicians.

In a report based on an unnamed source, Raw Story reported McClellan visited a homosexual bar March 19, 1995. Another anonymous source was quoted as saying McClellan regularly frequented Austin, Texas, "gay clubs." McClellan is an Austin native. His mother, Carolyn Keeton Strayhorn, former mayor of Austin is controller of the state of Texas and considered a contender for the governorship.

Raw Story "connects" Gannon and McClellan by citing a comment from the discredited reporter who said his only contact with the White House press secretary was to send him a card acknowledging his 2003 wedding.

"Outing" of reputedly closeted homosexuals, particularly those associated with the Republican Party or conservative politics, has become a favorite pastime of homosexual activists in recent years. Similarly, the "outing" of famous historical figures, from Abe Lincoln to Alexander the Great – whether or not the allegation of homosexuality is actually true – is a key activist tactic.

The unsubstantiated report in Raw Story has been picked up by numerous homosexual publications – online and off. McClellan has not commented on the reports now swirling around the Internet and in offline homosexual papers.

Homosexual activist Wayne Besen, author of "Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth," writing in Virginia's Falls Church News-Press, goes even further than Raw Story.

"The vulgar scandal (involving Gannon) has revived Washington whispers that the supposedly anti-gay Republican Party is really nothing less than a gay affirmative action program," he writes. "Glance at whose (sic) running the GOP and it looks like a Harvey Fierstein cocktail party. A few months ago, activist Mike Rogers of RawStoryQ.com revealed that GOP National Field Director Dan Gurley is gay and sought unsafe sex online. Rogers also revealed that Ken Mehlman, chair of the Republican National Committee, is gay."

Discussions about Mehlman's sexual orientation have been popular on Democratic Party websites, too, including the official Democratic National Committee website.

Besen concluded his column: "The Bush administration is the gayest in memory, although they are all quivering in the closet, or is that gyrating on the Internet?"

According to Raw Story's Byrne, Gurley acknowledged in a phone interview last September that he is "gay." In response to a later story by Byrne last November, that Gurley "solicited unprotected sex and multiple sex partners in an online profile at Gay.com," Gurley reportedly conceded that he had a profile in his America Online screenname – that same screenname as appeared in the Gay.com profile.

Attempts by WorldNetDaily to reach McClellan, Mehlman and Gurley for comment have so far proven unsuccessful.

Gannon, or Guckert, last week left his position as Washington bureau chief for Talon News, "because of the attention being paid to me."

Guckert was linked with online domain addresses suggestive of homosexual pornography. Guckert, a former resident of Wilmington, Del., told The (Wilmington) News Journal newspaper that he had registered the domain names for a client while he was working to set up a Web-hosting business.

McClellan said Guckert did not have a regular White House press pass but was cleared on a day-by-day basis to attend briefings and used his real name.

"He, like anyone else, showed that he was representing a news organization that published regularly and so he was cleared two years ago to receive daily passes just like many others are," McClellan said. "In this day and age, when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide, to try to pick and choose who is a journalist. It gets into the issue of advocacy journalism. Where do you draw the line? There are a number of people who cross that line in the briefing room."

He said he had been unaware of Guckert's affiliation with any sexually suggestive domain addresses.

Meanwhile, last night, CBS News attempted to connect Karl Rove to Guckert. In an online report by Dotty Lynch, senior political editor for CBS News, about Rove, she speculated about a link.

"The architect of the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004 came through the ranks of college Republicans with the late Lee Atwater, and their admitted and alleged dirty tricks are the legends many young political operatives dream of pulling off," she wrote. "So when Jeff Gannon, White House 'reporter' for Talon 'News,' was unmasked last week, the leap to a possible Rove connection was unavoidable. Gannon says that he met Rove only once, at a White House Christmas party, and Gannon is kind of small potatoes for Rove at this point in his career."

She continued: "But Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the 'boy genius.' Rove, who rarely gave on-the-record interviews to the MSM (mainstream media), had time to talk to GOPUSA, which owns Talon."

Gannon is now considering suing the bloggers, "liberal interest groups" and others for the "political assassination" that drove him from his reporting job, he tells Newsweek in its current edition.

Apparently, it has become a crime (for the left) to be Gay and not an advocate...or at least a Democrat. Even if these people are Gay, I have more respect for them because their lives are not defined by their sexuality.

Ironically, many of these people are the ones who defended Clinton...telling us that his sex life was a personal matter. Yet, it is these same people who very much want to make other people's sex-lives very public...so they can destroy them.

Am not in panic mode--but am P' ed. Too many Americans will
sleep until that trainwreck is inevitable. Then panic is useless. When everyone else panics I--the one they see as
unstable become very calm and cease to feel anything but act
in such a manner as to remedy whatever maelstrom is unfolding.

Most liberal gays are already out. And within the liberal community they are usually pretty well accepted.

It's the Republican side of the aisle that gets upset with gays and that's why it's a poison pill for many republican gays to be outed and it's why the left uses it against republicans.

The gay issue is going to become a large issue for Republicans in the future between the gay financial conservatives and to a point the gay national security conservatives and get the gonvernment off our backs conservatives on one side and the Christian Right conservatives on the other. I'm beginning to see more gays more closely align with the financial, security realists and get the government off our backs postion of the republican party more and more. The area I live in has a area Republican chairman that is gay and for the reasons I cited. I'm not sure of his beliefs in regard to matters of faith.

The Christian Right/Evangelical types are not happy that he's gay, although they do recognize his leadership qualities. But the gay thing is not easy to swallow. They are very concerned the party is being hijacked away from their social conservative issues and concerns. And they do plan to bring forward a non-gay person for the position when the incumbents term is over, purely on his sexual beliefs and not his sucess in his position.

So I guess your question "is it RNC policy to out gays" really is moot. It doesn't harm liberals and tends to hurt those in the RNC tent. Kind of like shooting yourself in the foot.

I didn't mean to imply your were panicing. Sorry about that.

I believe there is only so much we can do. I have had to think about this subject, and come to terms with what I was willing to sign on to.

I'm not willing to sign on to a plan that would see physical injury as a last resort remedy. I've had to adopt a coexistance, within limits.

When it comes to kids, I have very low tolerance to close associations or indoctrinations.

I do believe there is a ration arguement to be made for your case. I understand it's logic. I do however have a very hard time believing that roughly 2% of the populace is going to sink the Republican party as long as the party stays away from the issue of what people do in the privacy of their homes.

I have very mixed feelings about homosexuals being in positions of leadership in the party. I am relatively sure there are other qualified individuals that could appointed to tasks in new administrations.

I look at homosexuality as a morals issue. That may be a flawed view, but I have my reasons for holding that view.

Thanks for the comments. I don't think they were off the wall, at all.

>>Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the 'boy genius.' Rove, who rarely gave on-the-record interviews to the MSM (mainstream media), had time to talk to GOPUSA, which owns Talon." <<

Umm... Rove wouldn't like to pick the guy because he liked the questions he asked... No, too obvious... there must be a MORE sinister link...

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