Tuesday, May 12, 2015

A Gay President?

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The idea of a gay or lesbian being elected President of the United States is certainly not the impossibility that it would have been just a few short years ago - but now a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll has shown that the notion has moved well into the range of public acceptability.  The poll, conducted last month, asked respondents how they would feel about such an eventuality.  Sixty-one percent replied that they would be "enthusiastic" or "comfortable" with a gay or lesbian presidential candidate.

The same poll also asked about the public's acceptance of evangelical Christian candidates and found that 52% would be enthusiastic or comfortable with one of those.  And while slightly more than half is a respectable showing, it still lags behind the number of Americans who would be supportive of a gay or lesbian candidate.

Get those bags packed, Pat Robertson.  Jesus has his private jet fired up and is coming to get you.  The world is obviously going to hell!

(Interestingly, there has been a spate of news stories recently implying that some of our founding fathers and Presidents may have had a few gay tendencies, but most of that is just speculation whose primary function seems to be to keep the uber-patriotic homophobes on the defensive.  One of those stories, however, does seem to rise to a level of credibility that is far higher than the others.  President James Buchanan, a lifelong bachelor, appears to have lived life fairly openly as a gay man - and at the time no one thought much about it.  He went to work every day and did his job - and few really seemed to care about who he crawled into bed with at the end of the day.)  

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