Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 21, 1993 TAG: 9303220386
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
GOP HI-JINKS
SOUNDS LIKE some Virginia Republicans had a gay old time at their recent fund-raiser.What chuckles GOP Senate hopeful Oliver North must have drawn when he affected a lisp to explain how he finally got a call through to President Clinton at the White House. A lisp, get it? Ha-ha!
This is funny stuff. Let's see, there was state Sen. Warren Barry's reference to "fags in the foxhole," and a warning by Fairfax GOP Chairman Patrick Mullins about watching "your rear flank." (Gosh, hope no little ladies were in the audience.)
All this to skewer Clinton's proposal to allow gays into the military. Can you stand it?
If you've inferred these guys were being narrow, rest assured that wasn't the case. They also chortled over a reference to the "Soul Brothers Causeway" - you know, the 14th Street bridge linking Northern Virginia to the District of Columbia. The jokes were on old bogeymen as well as new.
These old boys were probably laughing too hard to hear the echoes from the GOP's national convention last year, where Republicans had one heckuva good, back-slappin' time with each other, but a whole lot of Americans weren't laughing along.
Aw, c'mon, you say. The remarks were made at a "roast." They were supposed to be humorous ridicule.
OK, but most "roasts" we know about involve severe, yes, but playful criticism of a guest of honor. The fellahs were there to roast former Rep. Stan Parris. As far as we know, he's neither gay nor black, so we don't really get the connection.
Unless they were trying to skewer him by calling up memories of his own side-splitting description of the 14th Street bridge as the longest in the world - it connects Virginia to Africa. Ta-dum. (Now that is embarrassing.)
The idea, we thought, was to put the guest of honor in the hot seat, not to rotisserize unfortunates outside the cozy little circle.
Reacting badly to this stuff may be overly fussy or politically correct. But then we read a news story appearing the same day as a report on the GOP laughfest: A lesbian student at Radford University accused a male student of yelling "dykes" at her and her friends, starting an argument that ended with a beer mug being smashed into her face.
Dyke is good for a joke. Also for a bash. Politicians who use these words - or who make sneering references to Africa, or who speak mockingly with a lisp - lend prejudice legitimacy and encouragement. And communicate something about their own caliber.