Marcus Bachmann's Big Gay Problem

Comments

This is a good point. You used to be able to "get away with" certain looks and behaviors, signifiers if you will. I'm thinking of the "Sal" character on "Mad Men", who was able to hide his orientation from everyone, even his wife, except himself.

Fnarf on July 14, 2011 at 11:18 AM

Ummm, gaydar?

merula on July 14, 2011 at 11:21 AM

It's a blessing and a curse to be lumped into a category.
Curse: I am a straight person
Blessing: Dan Savage speaks for me, and my likewise straight brethren.
Jumping on the generalizing bandwagon, so admirable Dan. Should we start talking again about Asians, blacks, retards? or is solely time for the straights to feel the burn?
Progressive All the Way Mr Dan

dnt trust me on July 14, 2011 at 11:22 AM

I think you mean "gaydar," Dan.

@ 3, why don't you go play a nice game of Hide n Go Fuck Yourself?

Matt from Denver on July 14, 2011 at 11:25 AM

@4
you mean go make generalizing statements about gay people? sorry, not my thing.

dnt trust me on July 14, 2011 at 11:27 AM

"Your involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement. And that is why it's so dangerous. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan to say this is gay. It's anything but gay."-Michele Bachmann
I've been gay all my life and I have never once regretted who I am. Never. I do not live in despair. I love life. I am not enslaved by anyone or anything. In fact, I am grateful I am gay. My life has been full of joy. I have known and loved wonderful people because I'm gay. So for her to make these claims, it's just more false witness. And I was taught that bearing false witness in Christianity is prohibited by one of the Ten Commandments. So, if this woman is a Christian, why has she made a career of bearing false witness?

Vince on July 14, 2011 at 11:29 AM

@3 Christ, what a mess. Could you for once say what you actually mean? Take a paragraph or two, leave out the sarcasm, and just make your point? Oh, and explain what it has to do with the article in question? Or would that be too much effort?

eptified on July 14, 2011 at 11:31 AM

If Mr. Bachmann wishes to have a gayday that is fine with me.

gloomy gus on July 14, 2011 at 11:31 AM

Wait. Liberace wasn't straight? Was he bi?

jzimbert on July 14, 2011 at 11:33 AM

@6 - her answer to that, vince, is that you're not TRULY happy. you're deceived by satan into thinking that your "lifestyle" is okay, even good. and you may never come to realize that you're wrong until you die and go to hell for being unrepentant. and that will be sad for you. but she won't be sad for you because you "chose" to live this way.

the problem is you're using logic, vince. you can't argue with a crazy person.

AmyC on July 14, 2011 at 11:34 AM

gayday?

... & it's real?

Robby on July 14, 2011 at 11:36 AM

Gayday... is that when you bring a homosexual to your neighbor's doorstep, ring the bell, and run away? Sounds like fun...

Julie in Eugene on July 14, 2011 at 11:37 AM

@5, the problem is, no one has any idea what your "thing" is, or what you're actually trying to say, because of the umpteen blankets of obfuscation you clumsily wrap your comments in. You could start by familiarizing yourself with the basic tenets of grammar.

Fnarf on July 14, 2011 at 11:39 AM

@10 I'm not arguing with a crazy person. I'm calling the crazy person a purposeful liar. A liar who has used deceit for her personal enrichment by way of our tax dollars.

Vince on July 14, 2011 at 11:39 AM

@3: You have a serious case of the crazies in all your posts.

Why does the discussion of a potential closeted self-hating gay who pretends to "cure" homosexuality bother you? How does it affect your straightness?

Either it doesn't and you're being a titty-baby about it, or you need to figure out why you're feeling like your straightness is under attack. Because it's not.

undead ayn rand on July 14, 2011 at 11:41 AM

Gayday 2011! The day when we can all be FABULOUS! (I'm thinking we totally need a big GayDay party, a day when everyone is gay, like all of a sudden everyone is as Irish as my Galway grandparents on March 17).

Geni on July 14, 2011 at 11:45 AM

Nicely put, Dan.

Hyzenthlayk9 on July 14, 2011 at 11:46 AM

@12: Oh my god, sign me up right away for that holiday!

TVDinner on July 14, 2011 at 11:46 AM

Nah. It's not the lying or, really, even the hypocrisy. First, people aren't outraged (well, gay people are, but that's nothing new), they're highly amused. It's about him being a big antigay flamer, married to an antigay pol (the contrast). It is homophobia, but the good kind--the kind that can and does derail undeserving political careers. Oh, and you're an idiot.

on July 14, 2011 at 11:50 AM

@19: " It is homophobia, but the good kind"

I'd call it a parody of homophobia, turning it back on the fundamentalists. "You hate people who lisp and mince? LOOK AT YOURSELF, PRINCESS".

undead ayn rand on July 14, 2011 at 11:51 AM

One problem, though -- I cherish my freedom to look and act like a big ol' fruit, but I'm straight. If I ping some gaydar, I find it kind of flattering, but really, people, it's just a flowered shirt. And I'm not really down with the idea that "effeminate" = "gay".

This is different than Marcus here, who pings the very thing he hates and fears the most.

Fnarf on July 14, 2011 at 11:54 AM

Homophobia is almost always a parody of itself when articulated. There should be a poe's law for virulent homophobia. Oh wait, it's called poe's law...LOL!

on July 14, 2011 at 11:57 AM

You think he doesn't "ping Michele's [gaydar]"? Of course he does! Why do you think she married him?

STJA on July 14, 2011 at 12:00 PM

@23 - exactly! surprised it took so long for someone to point that out.

sam2300 on July 14, 2011 at 12:02 PM

My mother still says, of a closeted religious relative, oh, he's just artsy. That's how her generation learned to talk about it -- you lie to yourself; you pretend to not know what you know. It's a cultural survival strategy that allows them to avoid the truth so they can get through awkward moments without the whole pack of cards coming down.

It's no surprise the religious right wants the public to return to that kind of knowledge denial about homosexuality. It's an essential component of a larger cultural dogmatism that requires a population that will accept, when necessary, the illusion that evil people are good, and hate is love.

Irena on July 14, 2011 at 12:04 PM

it's not because he pings on everyone's gaydar save Michele's

I highly doubt Michele is unaware of her husband's orientation. She's not the idiot Palin is. She also has a half-sister who is a lesbian (making her homophobia that much more despicable). If she's spent any time in her husband's "clinic" she's seen here share of closeted gay men and has had plenty of time to note they talked, walked and acted a lot like her husband.

I think Bachmann might actually have a case of second-hand closeted homophobia. She rails against homosexuality in part to hide the fact that she is married to a closeted gay man. Problem is, these days homophobia brings you more scrutiny, not more cover.

Lynx on July 14, 2011 at 12:05 PM

@25 Very well put.

Vince on July 14, 2011 at 12:09 PM

You see, Vince, you're not *really* happy. All you need to do to be *really* happy is attach this little brain slug....

Some Old Nobodaddy Logged In on July 14, 2011 at 12:09 PM

When I was younger, I realized there was something different about my dad's youngest brother's mannerisms and the way he talked. Those were the only differences that I noticed among my dad, his other brothers, and the youngest brother. He was married and an elementary school teacher and eventually a school principal. When I was a teenager, My uncle and his wife adopted a couple of kids. They seemed like a typical heterosexual couple. My uncle was effeminate but that's the way he had always been.

Things changed drastically when I was in college in the early 80s. My uncle was one of those men arrested for having sex with other men in a highway rest area. He pretty much lost everything in his life. My father refused to talk to him. My uncle died a number of years later from a heart attack. What a life, huh?

AKTheresa on July 14, 2011 at 12:12 PM

@21 Not all effeminate men are gay. But I would bet the vast majority are. And not all straight acting men are straight. But I would bet a majority are.

Vince on July 14, 2011 at 12:14 PM

I think dnt trust me's earlier posts are symptomatic of strait guilt. It's kind of like white guilt. Its root causes are the repressive wing of political correctness, mirroring Christian fundamentalist repression in that it is so overbound by dogma and the written word that it forgets to or refuses to acknowledge feeling.
Even if you are not conciously thinking "gay" when you meet someone, yet still observing certain characteristics, you are repressing your gaydar like Mr. Bachman is repressing his gay.
And is it really so wrong to acknowledge someones gayness/likely gayness if you aren't holding it against them?

Tingleyfeeln on July 14, 2011 at 12:37 PM

What about crazy-dar? Mine goes off every time I see Michelle's too-open eyes and not-quite-human looking face.

raggeddog on July 14, 2011 at 12:46 PM

I think we need to declare open season on Marcus. By which I mean young, hot gay boys should seek Marcus out and drag his closeted ass into bed... and gather evidence. Pictures, YouTube videos, a blue dress-- anything to out this douchebag closet case. Not only would you be doing a service for your country, you'd get all kinds of book deals, interviews, etc.

I'd do it myself if I were young or remotely hot. And I'm straight.

I Hate Screen Names on July 14, 2011 at 12:49 PM

A former close friend of mine could be a twin to "Dr" Bachman. [I say former, because as a closet case, he drank to excess to take away the pain and as an alcoholic became an irrational and dangerous friend.]

He was gay in the Deep South and that was simply not done, as his family would tell you. He had the looks, sounds and mannerisms of "Dr" Bachman, so it was apparent to most people that he was gay. But. But. He was taught to hate teh gays and hate what he was.

He insisted on proclaiming himself straight, got married (sadly to a woman who really loved him and didn't know what he was) and they had a child. Of course, the marriage failed. His life has been a torture to him until his mother died finally and he began to make small steps to admitting he was gay, but the damage has been done.

He has never been successful in anything he has done in business. Gay folks despised him for his hypocrisy and straight folks believed him a liar when he boasted about his straight marriage. No one felt comfortable around him. He still drinks because he can't/won't stop. I remember him when I first met him as a great guy who could have been an asset to society instead of the lying asshole that being closeted as left him.

Bugnroolet on July 14, 2011 at 12:55 PM

Is there any chance that there are some substantial reports out there about Marcus to give this story legs? I was a bit surprised how openly Stewart & Colbert mocked his alleged hypocrisy. If Marcus is indeed gay does anybody seriously think he's gone 50 years without once 'falling off the wagon'?

DavidC on July 14, 2011 at 12:59 PM

All this is hugely problematic, but to me the most fucked-up thing about the rise of the Bachmanns in American politics is not that he's a closeted gay, it's that she says outright that, as a Christian wife, she must defer to him -- and yet she is running for president??? How does that even work? If his word is the last word, why aren't Americans asking him the hard questions?

Irena on July 14, 2011 at 1:08 PM

@16: Do we need something in addition to Pride Parade Day? I'll grant, Gay Day has a nice ring to it...

@21: Agreed: it's not specifically (or JUST) Marcus's homogendered behaviorisms, it's that in combination with the anti-gay activism/"therapy"/abuse that just screams "self-hating closet case".

@32: She does have the crazy-eyes, and she accents them with make-up; it's really unsettling to watch video of her.

John Horstman on July 14, 2011 at 1:12 PM

I feel sorry for this guy. I know we're not supposed to, since he has taken his self-hatred and turned it into a way to make other gays hate themselves. But, I can't help it. Anyone that reacts in such a way must have been really, really hurt in his past, and I feel bad that he's so obviously tormented. Maybe if there were an It Gets Better when he was a kid, he could have grown up to be someone that is ok with himself. Instead, he lives a life of constantly trying to hide who he is. That's such an awful, awful way to live.

hereiswheremynamegoes on July 14, 2011 at 1:13 PM

This thread is great, but all I can think about now is that despite Bachmann's looney-ness, let's face it-- she's one hot cougar, and I wonder how her politics would change if Jesse Ventura grabbed her by the hair and gave her a hot dose of what she hasn't been getting from her gay hubby.

Which makes me wonder if she HAS been getting it on the side? 'Cuz if she hasn't... what a waste.

WFM on July 14, 2011 at 1:13 PM

From his generation, and community, yeah, it's a possibility that Bachman has gone 50 years without falling off the wagon.

But note: he found a way to surround himself with gays, and a way to teach 'em the self-hate he needed to get through his closeted life.

Thereby giving himself both a gay community and compatriots in the self-immolating suffering he chose.

judybrowni on July 14, 2011 at 1:17 PM

@35- I suspect he has made it w/o falling off. I made it 15 years playing 'straight', swallowed up in the closet of self-loathing. 25 years later, that period of my life still haunts me for all the self-esteem destruction it wrought.

OutInBumF on July 14, 2011 at 1:46 PM

WAAAAAIT! HOLD ON!

Are you trying to imply that Liberace was GAY!?!

tkc on July 14, 2011 at 1:49 PM

..."He's appears to be a lying closet case, a lying closet case whose made convincing other gay people to join him in the closet his life's work."...

Arrrrgh, Dan! You've got an apostrophe s in a place that doesn't need one, and an apostrophe s missing where there should be one.

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/who…

Piano Tuna on July 14, 2011 at 1:51 PM

@36: Right! Let's say First Lady Marcus orders President Michelle to nuke Queensland (the Australian state) because there's something about that name that really, really bothers him. If she defers to his 'judgment' in all things, as her kooky religion requires, doesn't that make him the Commander in Chief?

Anastasia Beaverhausen on July 14, 2011 at 2:12 PM

On Gaydar, it occurs to me that a problem with drug testing might also apply to gaydar. False Positives. If the gaydar test is 90% accurate, but only 10% of everyone is gay, for every 100 people on the gaydar screen, you'll get 9 gay people ID as gay, 1 gay person ID as straight, 9 straight people ID as gay and 81 straight people as straight. So your gaydar for 100 people might show 18 gay people, of which only 9 are gay. Which means you're only 50/50 actually being a gay person given that you set off the gaydar, even if you're 90% accurate in your gaydar. Luckily, for Marcus Bachman you have the professional homophobia as a secondary indicator so I'd say his forecast is a 99.9% chance of precipitating men.

mercutio79 on July 14, 2011 at 2:48 PM

@37 - We do! Pride Day is great, but it's not an "everyone is gay today" day, not the way St. Patrick's has become an "everyone is Irish today" day.

I want a day for FABULOUSNESS.

Geni on July 14, 2011 at 3:22 PM

@ #21, I have met more effeminate straight men than I have met effeminate gay men, by a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG margin. One freely admits to such, a couple would try to macho it up from time to time but would inevitably end up acting like themselves once they were comfortable and happy, and couple were completely oblivious to it all. Good times.

It takes stuff much more subtle than general-purpose queeniness that to ping off my gaydar. Queeny and surrounded by a horde of happy, giggling women? Dead giveaway.

slinky on July 14, 2011 at 3:37 PM

Bad news, gang. I looked up the original article. They unfortunately don't give percent accuracy, they use a correlation statistic which is harder to interpret, but the effect size doesn't look very big.

But it gets worse. We need to take into account "base rates," i.e. what percentage of guys in the general population are actually gay. Let's assume 5%. And lets assume a way-over-generous accuracy rate of 75% for the gaydar. Applying Bayes' Theorem, if you think someone looks gay you'll only be right 14% of the time. Why? Because the 25% of straight cases where you say "gay" so far outnumber the 75% of gay cases where you say "gay".

On the other hand, in favor of gaydar, the study didn't include clothing, movement, or speech patterns.

Margaret L. on July 14, 2011 at 4:24 PM

D'oh, didn't see @46.

I agree about the professional homophobia changing the base rates!

Margaret L. on July 14, 2011 at 4:27 PM

@36 (Irena), thank you for writing what I've been thinking for a while. Does nobody else (aka the American public) see the disconnect in the Presidential candidacy of a "Christian" woman and wife who's already proclaimed that she follows her husband's dictums (like becoming a tax lawyer because he told her to) when her Biblical ROLE is that she have no RULE over people (read men).

So, if the unthinkable were to happen (though, unfortunately, there appear to be a number of unthinkable possibilities among the Republican candidates), would President Bachman call a regular recess during cabinet meetings so she could ask her husband what to do? Helpless fluttering of eyelashes optional.

And here I'd hoped we'd finally consigned Stepford Wives to the graveyard of the 20th century. But I guess some dinosaurs are slower to die out.

Helenka (also a Canuck) on July 14, 2011 at 5:45 PM

You know, I listen to Marcus go on and on about how terrible it will be for young people to hear about the gay lifestyle with greater openness (and none of that oh-so-useful previous societal condemnation), to the extent that they'll ALL be enticed to at least try it because, dontcha know, it's a choice (and such an overwhelmingly tempting one at that, as choicers are fond of reminding us).

So wouldn't it be amazing to ask Michele (instead of Marcus) IN PUBLIC just how often she's been tempted with the choice to be a lesbian.

Choicers. Simply arrgghh.

OTOH, I'd love to see a universal Gayday. Would the beer be rainbow-coloured?

Helenka (also a Canuck) on July 14, 2011 at 6:08 PM

@46 and @49, good work, thanks for doing that math. I was thinking about that myself a bit. I'd be REALLY curious about exact distributions of false positives (and negatives) that subjects got - were they just picking up "effeminate"? Or were the errors random?

STJA on July 14, 2011 at 7:12 PM

@49: YES. Thank you for laying this out for us.

venomlash on July 14, 2011 at 7:19 PM

Better than chance just means >50%. I would give a lot more credence if they'd come out and say what percentage.

Mrs. DePointe on July 14, 2011 at 8:12 PM

The most intelligent response I've seen to accusations that Dan is out of line came from a reader's post on Slate: Sorry, but Marcus Bachmann is bilking taxpayers to pay for torturing gay people who are in pain. He has lost any claim to comity on our part. He is the bully. The message here is just fine: "you mess with our kids/our people, you are a legitimate target." Dan Savage -- you rock.

lchernow on July 14, 2011 at 9:09 PM

I know who Liberace is, who is "Cam"?

on July 15, 2011 at 7:06 AM

Sooo interesting! I once had a friendship dissolve, not because my friend was gay, but, because I knew it, she knew it, and we could never talk about really intimate things because she was still in the closet to her family(who lived hundreds of miles away). Liars are doomed to unhappy lives and pity the person who marries one.

chick on July 15, 2011 at 12:02 PM

56, I totally agree. There would be nothing funny about Marcus Bachmann in the abstract; what makes it worthy of mockery is only and precisely that he himself torments gay people. He hurts other people for displaying traits that he himself seems to display. THAT is the humor. Bachmann can be 100% straight, and it's STILL funny that he has some stereotypically gay mannerisms, because he's the one who detests such things! He's the one fighting them!

Suzy on July 15, 2011 at 12:55 PM

@56 - Zigackly. Call it a variant of the Barney Frank rule. If you're engaged in activities destructive to the well-being of non-heterosexual men and women, it's fair game to point out that you exhibit the kind of behaviors that get less privileged kids tormented, beaten, and even killed.

jeevmon on July 15, 2011 at 2:21 PM

I always wondered why Michelle's hair was so styled and she dressed so FAAABULOUSLY...

liberbypass on July 16, 2011 at 9:21 AM

Thanks Dan. I'm really sick of the all the people, and those gay men particularly, who claim it's wrong to even comment on or speculate about Bachmann's sexuality because it's tantamount to bullying.

Bachmann is a big fucking sissy fag. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that--I like sissies and I'm a huge fag myself. He's also a dangerous lying hypocrite scumbag who needs to be called out on his bullshit.

Hoyt Clagwell on July 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM

people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks - we all have the same bodies , the same cells (including brain cells) and the same wants and desires (maybe in different ammounts) and needs ! NEEDS , affection , touch, acceptence , closeness , and .......SEX! Everyone may not admit it but we are ALL capable and most have experimented somewhat around the time of puberty or later and those who haven't are , I think , less imaginative or just plain less "gutsy". Just my opinion after 64 years of life experiences .
sentient guy

sentient guy on July 19, 2011 at 9:54 AM

The Bachmanns have five children together.

Yeah, I can see a lot of self-delusion here, but the Bachmanns aren't the ones perpetrating it. Hatred and self-hating? I see a lot of that, too.

The thought that being homosexual is actually a choice really, totally, absolutely terrifies you, doesn't it?

on July 25, 2011 at 7:21 AM

Marcus Bachmann is as gay as a 3 dollar bill. 23 foster children all girls. She (Michelle) didn't want him to give into his temptations and urges.

on September 26, 2011 at 2:14 PM

Marcus Bachmann's Big Gay Problem

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