by publius
Over at Volokh, Dale Carpenter has an interesting, and touching, post on the GOP’s dysfunctional relationship with homosexuality. It’s more than hypocrisy, Carpenter says, something more complicated. I think he understates the base’s visceral dislike for homosexuality (which is what’s driving all this in the first place), but it’s still an interesting post:
The big, open secret in Republican politics is that everyone knows someone gay these days and very few people – excepting some committed anti-gay activists – really care. . . . So to keep religious conservatives happy the party has done two things. First, it has steadfastly resisted efforts to ease anti-gay discrimination in public policy, even when Republican politicians know better. . . . Second, to keep the talent it needs and simply to be as humane and decent as politically possible toward particular individuals, the party has come up with its own unwritten common-law code: you can be gay and work here, we don’t care, but don’t talk about it[.]This uneasy mix of the public and the private is not exactly what I’d call hypocrisy. It’s perhaps better described as a form of ideological schizophrenia: private acceptance welded to public rejection. It’s a very unstable alloy.
For the closeted gay Republican, this alloy means a life of desperation and fear and loneliness, of expressing one's true feelings only in the anonymity of the Internet, of furtive bathroom encounters, of late nights darting in and out of dark bars, hoping not to be seen. It means life without a long-term partner, without real love.
In reading this, I thought of Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! There are some fascinating parallels between Mr. Craig and Mr. Sutpen’s tragic falls. Major spoilers below, so I’ve put it below the fold.
As I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s best and most accessible book, but Absalom, Absalom! is a close second. That said, it’s an extremely difficult book. I read half of it in college, stopped, and then read a secondary source a couple of years later. Then I read it again and loved it. Particularly for a southron, it’s an extremely powerful, dark, self-loathing, tragic, ambitious story (good things, all). It’s great. And it’s much better the second time ‘round.
Anyway, the main character is Thomas Sutpen – a man who had grown up poor but wills himself wealthy through questionable means. He’s a villain through most of it, but becomes more sympathetic by the end. He has two children, who feature prominently in the novel. (Three, actually).
Sutpen’s world is ultimately destroyed by a man named Charles Bon – his estranged son. Later in the book, we learn that Sutpen was once an overseer in the French Caribbean colonies. There, he married a rich plantation owner’s daughter, and they had a child. Turns out, though, that she was a fraction black. He promptly abandoned both her and the child, but not before her embarrassed father gave him a bunch of money to compensate him. And thus began Thomas Sutpen’s quest to be a Southern man of power.
Charles Bon (many years later) would reappear in Sutpen’s life. He befriended Sutpen’s son (his brother) at the University of Mississippi, and the son (not knowing any of this) invited him back to the Sutpen plantation for the holidays. Bon was plotting his revenge, but he was going to give his estranged father one chance to redeem himself. Bon would leave the family alone, he resolved, if Sutpen acknowledged him in any way. Like any son, Bon just wanted a basic (if fleeting) acknowledgement of his father’s love – he wanted “the instant of indisputable recognition.” Here’s one of the most powerful passages in the book (written from Bon’s perspective):
There would be that flash, that instant of indisputable recognition between them . . . That’s all I want. He need not even acknowledge me; I will let him understand just as quickly that he need not do that, that I do not expect that . . . . Because he [Bon] knew exactly what he wanted . . . the physical touch even though in secret, hidden – the living touch of that flesh warmed before he was born by the same blood which it had bequeathed him to warm his own flesh with, to be bequeathed by him in turn to run hot and loud in veins and limbs after . . . his own were dead.
Sutpen, of course, flatly ignored him and pretended to be ignorant. Enraged, Bon proceeded in ways that I won’t spoil. But he set in motion a chain of events that tragically destroyed the entire Sutpen family. The failure to acknowledge his son – the son with slave blood – destroyed Thomas Sutpen. The refusal to recognize the son’s dignity – even on the most minimal level – brought down the entire family.
Like the Sutpens, the South was destroyed by the failure to recognize the dignity of its slaves. Like the Sutpens, the South’s wealth and empire depended on its ties with slavery. Figuratively, and at times literally, the South’s ruling classes had slave blood in them. The South’s failure to acknowledge this – the failure to recognize its ties and dependence on slavery – set in a motion a horrific chain of events from which it has never recovered, even 150 years later.
So how does all this relate to Larry Craig and the GOP? Like Thomas Sutpen, Craig came to power denying part of himself. He too failed to give the most basic recognition and dignity to his homosexuality. Instead, he hid it and attacked it and pretended like it didn’t exist. He lied to himself. He lied to his wife. He pretended that it wasn’t there. And then, with the tap of a shoe, the plantation came crumbling down. I recognize, of course, that he would never have been an Idaho Senator if he admitted to being gay. But similarly to Sutpen, the same repression that brought him to power ultimately had its revenge.
The parallels are arguably even stronger for the GOP as an institution. As Carpenter eloquently describes, homosexuality is a part of the DC GOP institution. GOP officials rely on – and are friends with – gay staffers and associates. But publicly they tolerate – and even encourage – a grotesque bigotry. Like the Sutpens, they refuse to recognize their own – even when their own are partly responsible for their power and success.
It’s happening more slow-motion, but the failure to recognize the dignity of their own may well be bringing the party down. The Foley controversy (stemming from his closet-ness), for instance, didn’t necessarily cost them the election, but it certainly played a role (if for no other reason than by sucking the air out of the room after the military commissions “success”).
But more ominously for the GOP are the long-term trends. Young people are turning against the GOP in record numbers. Part of that (at least according to this survey – pdf) is because they don’t like religious conservatives. As someone barely within that demographic, I think the gay-bashing is one of the most important “deal-breaker” issues for young people. It’s just so inconceivable these days to be that anti-gay that many young people won’t even consider associating themselves with the Republican Party. To be sure, lots of religious conservatives don't think this way -- and find these views abhorrent. But they're not as visible right now.
A bit overstated? Perhaps. But these things have a way of exacting their revenge. And we may be seeing that unfold today.
Foley didn't cost the Republicans the election in the larger sense, but it did cost them one seat, a seat they would have held onto rather easily if Foley hadn't self-destructed. I think the metaphor is a good one, seeing as the closet is a symbol of the same self-loathing Sutpen saw reflected in Charles Bon. (I need to reread that, seeing as I work with a Faulkner scholar now.)
There are parallels, I think, that you can tie in with the Republican party's odd relationship with Hispanics as well.
Posted by: Incertus (Brian) | August 30, 2007 at 11:56 PM
The GOP, from Nixon's "Southern Strategy" on, benefitted politically by embracing the South - which meant embracing not only its racism, but perhaps more crucially, the South's still-vigorous resentment dating back to the Civil War. That resentment encompasses everything that is "Northern," from social mores to economic structure.
The GOP has ended up by internalizing the Old South mindset, right down to its pseudo-aristocratic, racially-charged parochialism. Thus the GOP can pursue the economics of plutocracy while encouraging its non-plutocrats to feel perpetually victimized by convenient target groups (people of color, gays, immigrants, atheists, etc.) The tension between private acceptance and public excoriation mirrors the pseudo-artistocratic ethos: one morality for the haut and another one for the bas.
The GOP spent 35 years remaking itself in the image of the ante-bellum South. Like the South, it's put itself into a position where it can't adapt, can't bend, without undermining its essential foundations. A society that can't change can't survive.
Posted by: CaseyL | August 31, 2007 at 12:31 AM
Hey, who knows if Craig is gay. It's none of our business either way, frankly. It's between him and his family.
And, you know, whether he's gay or not, the whole business is kind of weird. The idea of sending cops out to troll for consensual sexual advances in order to make a collar is a little bit too close to entrapment for my taste.
All of that said -- there's something even more weird about people allying themselves with folks who hate and despise them, who would at best prefer to see them go away and at worst like to see them in jail, and who find the tale of a callow punk like preppy bow-tie-wearing Tucker Carlson beating their heads against the wall the height of entertainment.
Not that it matters what I do or do not understand, but I do not understand gay people who align themselves with current-day conservatives. Nobody has to justify their position to me, in any way, but I just don't get it.
In my world, it just doesn't make sense to hang out with folks who'd prefer that I didn't exist.
Thanks -
Posted by: russell | August 31, 2007 at 12:32 AM
Funny, I was thinking of Faulkner as well, but Light in August and the character of Joe Christmas. I'm also surprised that with all the discussion about compulsive behavior, no one has mentioned the case of Claude Allen, whose compulsiveness, though not sexual, seems to mirror the self destructive urges that Craig could be said to exhibit.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | August 31, 2007 at 01:36 AM
_LiA_ also passed through my mind reading this excellent post, but I'm a Graham Greene fan.
Posted by: rilkefan | August 31, 2007 at 02:39 AM
One of the posters filling in for Sullivan made a wonderful point. My first instinct was pity and sorrow for Craig, but then I discovered his voting record and now he is simply one of the most shallow hurtful and contemptible people in the Senate.
He has been bending over backwards to make certain that gay men and women do not have the same rights as heterosexuals. Craig, through his bizarre pathology has tried to make certain that other gays and lesbians are just as miserable as he is.
He voted against gay marriage. Because if a gay couple was at an airport taking a trip together, that`s two men who are happy together, and not looking for a shallow, fleeting experience in a public restroom.
If gays are allowed to serve openly in the military, then they can look for positive relationships, not strange affairs with seriously damaged older men.
Craig has acted selfishly. He has acted wrongly. He has acted cowardly.
Posted by: profbacon | August 31, 2007 at 03:04 AM
As a Mormon, I believe strongly in my faith, and am generally pretty moderate in my political views. But at this point in time, I want to have absolutely nothing at all to do with the Republican party. It is in such shambles and so shameful. I mean, don't Republicans even see how bad their party has become? I don't see how it can be saved from its plunge into the abyss right now.
Posted by: Dan | August 31, 2007 at 06:31 AM
shock comes when you read the arrest report, being arrested for tapping your foot by an officer who encourages you tapping your foot, sounds like a bad parody of very dark times...
Posted by: ada kollwitz | August 31, 2007 at 07:18 AM
russell: Hey, who knows if Craig is gay. It's none of our business either way, frankly. It's between him and his family.
It's also between him and every other family that Craig has demanded suffer legal discrimination: and between him and every other gay or bisexual man who has grown up being taught that open and unashamed relationships between men are worse than surreptitious sexual encountters in public restrooms.
I'm reminded of the church that offered to host a funeral for a gay man, the brother of one of the church's employees - until it became clear that the gay man's family did not regard his sexual orientation as a shameful secret amd would not keep the funeral service for him in the closet.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | August 31, 2007 at 07:52 AM
No way is AILD better than A,A! The former is a pretty good read, but Absalom, Absalom! is a freakin' masterpiece.
I have this crazy desire to film it, just so I can roll those end credits over that huge, evil mansion in the woods, burning down in the dark.
Posted by: Anderson | August 31, 2007 at 09:29 AM
A most excellent post!
Posted by: edward_ | August 31, 2007 at 10:30 AM
Heard a joke last night: What's the GOP's secret weapon going to be in 2008?
A straight Republican!
Posted by: BigHank53 | August 31, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Anderson,
I agree, but I think Craig (and the Republicans) has a lot more in common with Joe Christmas' self loathing than Thomas Sutpen's haughty superiority and, like Christmas, I think that Craig and the Republicans are going to set the stage for a bloodlust that is going to have them castrated. I can see the desire for a notion of the Republicans presiding over a great mansion that is no longer kept up, but to me, the Republicans seem more like a modern amalgam that draws on the worst tendencies of modern propaganda to give themselves power.
Though this analysis may simply be trying to make something even more overstated than the original post ;^)
Posted by: liberal japonicus | August 31, 2007 at 10:54 AM
My vote for best Faulkner novel goes to The Sound and the Fury. Excellent post, though.
Posted by: Gus | August 31, 2007 at 11:16 AM
publius: this is a really good post.
Posted by: hilzoy | August 31, 2007 at 11:57 AM
And In Other News,
Hillary Promises to Vet Future Contributions.
Rumor has it that Hillary will take a college course in vetting, having learned nothing from eight years of screaming and tossing lamps in the White House, plus six years in the Senate, stuck and miserable with her inferiors. Did I almost forget Arkansas, added all together that's a long time in which not to learn "vetting". But I suppose you learn slowest what you like least.
Sorry, but three pieces on Craig? A change of pace will be good for you all so regard this as a favor.
Happy Feet Craig is pathetic enough but I doubt if he had come out of that crowded and always busy closet he would have been greeted with much warmth or sympathy. A Republican you know.
So much for him and on to broader horizons, if not much cleaner. One must broaden one's perspective if one is to grasp and appreciate the wonderful world of politics.
And by the way, you may yet rue the day when and if this misshapen gargoyle squeezes her bulk into the White House.
Excepting those who are committed masochists.
After years of padding and dealing in Arkansas
Posted by: johnt | August 31, 2007 at 12:01 PM
OT: Tony Snow officially out. (Not the closet, resigned I mean.)
Posted by: OCSteve | August 31, 2007 at 12:08 PM
My vote for best Faulkner novel goes to The Sound and the Fury.
Me too. Benjy is W, and Jason is Tom DeLay, but I'm not sure which Republican Quentin is.
Posted by: Mike Schilling | August 31, 2007 at 12:18 PM
johnt - I feel the good within you, let go of your hate.
Posted by: Ugh | August 31, 2007 at 12:33 PM
Thanks for this post -- it's great. It's been too many years since I read any Faulkner. (My fave has always been The Hamlet, but Absalom, Absalom! is indeed great. Maybe after I get off my Pamuk kick...
Posted by: The Modesto Kid | August 31, 2007 at 12:36 PM
Snow is one of the best books i've read in a while (speaking of pamuk, not Tony)
Posted by: publius | August 31, 2007 at 12:40 PM
johnt, if you're a Hemingway fan instead, there's no shame in saying so.
Posted by: JakeB | August 31, 2007 at 12:52 PM
I think it's instructive, too, to realize that the Republican Party, due to it's "southern strategy" has absorbed the old line Dixiecrats and become them. Most of it's leaders are southerners whose family history is steeped in the old Southern Democratic Party, racism and that "old time religion".
Posted by: Stoic | August 31, 2007 at 01:51 PM
Publius: I thought the same of Snow and am having similar thoughts about My Name is Red. You can read my reflections on those books here and here if you are interested. Not reviews, just thoughts jotted down as I was/am reading.
Posted by: The Modesto Kid | August 31, 2007 at 02:06 PM
My Name is Red is sitting on my shelf, but I haven't read it yet
Posted by: publius | August 31, 2007 at 02:11 PM
"The big, open secret in Republican politics is that everyone knows someone gay these days and very few people – excepting some committed anti-gay activists – really care. . "
Nuts, their base, the Evangelicals and authoritarian Catholics are deeply committed to hating gays. Lose the gay hate, they lose their power.
Posted by: Eli Rabett | August 31, 2007 at 05:03 PM
"The big, open secret in Republican politics is that everyone knows someone gay these days and very few people – excepting some committed anti-gay activists – really care. . "
Nuts, their base, the Evangelicals and authoritarian Catholics are deeply committed to hating gays. Lose the gay hate, they lose their power.
Posted by: Eli Rabett | August 31, 2007 at 05:03 PM
"The big, open secret in Republican politics is that everyone knows someone gay these days and very few people – excepting some committed anti-gay activists – really care. . "
Nuts, their base, the Evangelicals and authoritarian Catholics are deeply committed to hating gays. Lose the gay hate, they lose their power.
Posted by: Eli Rabett | August 31, 2007 at 05:03 PM
There was a short story from the Harlem Renaissance (by Hughes?) similar to A,A. A son of a plantation owner by a black maid receives a college education and comes back to receive his father's approval.
Wackiness ensues.He is sadly disappointed and things go rapidly from bad to worse from there.Posted by: Jeff | August 31, 2007 at 05:27 PM
My name is Red is awesome.
Posted by: hilzoy | August 31, 2007 at 06:04 PM
It's also between him and every other family that Craig has demanded suffer legal discrimination
Quite right, and thanks for the correction.
Posted by: russell | August 31, 2007 at 06:24 PM
Ugh, How in just one sentence do you manage to be incoherent ? I know, you're trying to be witty, but relying on the only thing you know personally must be wearing you out. I don't mean "goodness".
JakeB I don't read fiction, and unlike Ugh I don't read comic books either. Look up Derek Parfit or Nancy Cartwright and you'll get the idea of my current fare.
Good night all.
How are you making out with "Mary Had a Little Lamb"?
Posted by: johnt | August 31, 2007 at 10:58 PM
Hilzoy -- have you read Snow? It is really boggling my mind that one author could have written two consecutive novels so completely unlike one another, and both at the very highest level of literary quality. I think the only things the two books have in common are being set in Turkey (not even in the same part of Turkey tho) and dealing extensively with embarrassment and shame.
Posted by: The Modesto Kid | August 31, 2007 at 11:20 PM
Look up Derek Parfit or Nancy Cartwright and you'll get the idea of my current fare.
Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson?
Posted by: russell | September 01, 2007 at 01:30 AM
John Cole has the speech Larry Craig should give.
Posted by: KCinDC | September 01, 2007 at 10:51 AM
The GOP, from Nixon's "Southern Strategy" on, benefitted politically by embracing the South - which meant embracing not only its racism, but perhaps more crucially, the South's still-vigorous resentment dating back to the Civil War. That resentment encompasses everything that is "Northern," from social mores to economic structure.
This makes a lot of sense. Take anything said or written on the right, strike "liberal" and insert "Yankee" and it makes perfect sense.
Posted by: mark | September 01, 2007 at 01:57 PM