Wooing the Right Wing

Alvin McEwen, the excellent blogger at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, provides yet another example of how politicians go from doing the right thing to wooing the right wing.  Today's example?  Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (left).  Back in 1993 he voted to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, public accommodations, and employment.  Now Governor Pawlenty is seriously considering a run for the Republican nomination for President.  Do I even have to finish this entry to tell you what he says about that law now?

It's become all too familiar.  Governor Pawlenty, of course, has pulled a Mitt Romney (right).  Says Pawlenty:

I regretted the vote later because it included things like cross-dressing, and a variety of other people involved in behaviors that weren't based on sexual orientation, just a preference for the way they dressed and behaved. So it was overly broad. So if you are a third-grade teacher and you are a man and you show up on Monday as Mr. Johnson and you show up on Tuesday as Mrs. Johnson, that is a little confusing to the kids. So I don't like that.

Thank goodness someone is saving third graders from cross-dressing teachers!  Of course, Pawlenty is playing on fear of transgendered people in a very ugly way.  And Freud might have something to say about him choosing the name "Mr. Johnson"-- but I won't go there.

When history is finally written about the LGBT fight for equal rights, there will be a special chapter on cowards like Pawlenty who backtracked after doing the right thing for their own political gain.