"Premeditated gay-baiting," is what Zev Chafets calls Kerry's inappropriate comments about Cheney's daughter in today's Daily News.
The third Bush-Kerry debate may not change the outcome of the presidential election in November. But it may well be remembered as a milestone in the struggle for gay equality and acceptance. Give the credit for that to John Kerry.
Why Cheney's daughter? Kerry knows lots of famous people who believe - as he says Mary Cheney believes - that they were born gay. He could have cited Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank or New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey. Both are public men who could offer personal testimony about the inborn nature of homosexuality.
But that wasn't the point Kerry wanted to make. He was crying Mary to send a message to presumably homophobic Christian voters: Just in case you hadn't heard, the vice president harbors a practicing lesbian in the bosom of his family.
Despite Kerry's angel-faced sanctimony, this was a piece of premeditated gay-baiting (John Edwards used the same gambit in his debate with Cheney) whose transparent purpose was to keep some of the GOP's evangelical voters from turning out on Nov. 2.
Chafets is right when he says Kerry's gay-bashing will backfire. Conservative Christians are not nearly as extreme, or as bigoted, as Kerry believes them to be.
Kerry's "premeditated gay-bashing" and his draft fear mongering proves Kerry will indeed say anything to get himself elected.
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