In Hamlet, Shakespeare has Gertrude say in regard to a character in a play, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Like so much else that the Bard wrote, this quote has come to address a particular circumstance in life. When one is guilty of something which he/she does not want known, he/she may strive to give the appearance of being and doing the opposite of that thing. And so the dishonest woman proclaims her honesty - "I would never lie to you!" The thief professes his innocence - "I've never stolen anything in my life!" The false lover vows, "Of course I'll still respect you in the morning!"
We've seen this play so often in recent years that we should be able to write its ending every time. Nowhere is the ending to the play more obvious than in the political arena with those politicians who wrap themselves in the blanket of family values and excoriate anyone who is deviant from what they define as the path of righteousness. And so we get the spectacle of Larry Craig and his "wide stance" in that Minnesota men's room, or Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina giving new meaning to the phrase "hiking the Appalachian Trail", or Sen. John Ensign paying off the cuckolded husband of his lover in order to keep from being exposed, or Ted Haggard railing against homosexuality while secretly carrying on with a male prostitute. Well, the list goes on and on. And now we can add another name - George Rekers. George Rekers and his "rentboy".
George Rekers who was considered by the States of Florida and Arkansas as an expert on "curing homosexuality" and was paid by those states to testify in court on this subject on which he had alleged expertise. He was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars! If I were the people of Florida and Arkansas, I'd be asking for my money back. I'd also be asking some hard questions of the state officials who paid him that money.
But all of these guys and so many others pretend or have pretended to be something they are not. The homosexuals pretend to be heterosexuals. The faithless husbands pretend to be loving family men. And, most despicably, all the while they preach to others about what their proper behavior should be!
One can only surmise that they hate themselves and what they are so much that they feel the necessity of building a wall of protection around themselves. And so they protest too much - "Homosexuality is a sin and I would never ever engage in it." "My wife and family are the most important things in my life." - and all the while they continue engaging in that behavior which they publicly deplore.
These people are pitiable on one level. But they are also thoroughly despicable for the pain they cause others with their self-righteous fulminations. And for that, they deserve to be exposed and made the butt of late night comics' jokes. It seems that Jon Stewart will not be running out of material any time soon.
We've seen this play so often in recent years that we should be able to write its ending every time. Nowhere is the ending to the play more obvious than in the political arena with those politicians who wrap themselves in the blanket of family values and excoriate anyone who is deviant from what they define as the path of righteousness. And so we get the spectacle of Larry Craig and his "wide stance" in that Minnesota men's room, or Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina giving new meaning to the phrase "hiking the Appalachian Trail", or Sen. John Ensign paying off the cuckolded husband of his lover in order to keep from being exposed, or Ted Haggard railing against homosexuality while secretly carrying on with a male prostitute. Well, the list goes on and on. And now we can add another name - George Rekers. George Rekers and his "rentboy".
George Rekers who was considered by the States of Florida and Arkansas as an expert on "curing homosexuality" and was paid by those states to testify in court on this subject on which he had alleged expertise. He was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars! If I were the people of Florida and Arkansas, I'd be asking for my money back. I'd also be asking some hard questions of the state officials who paid him that money.
But all of these guys and so many others pretend or have pretended to be something they are not. The homosexuals pretend to be heterosexuals. The faithless husbands pretend to be loving family men. And, most despicably, all the while they preach to others about what their proper behavior should be!
One can only surmise that they hate themselves and what they are so much that they feel the necessity of building a wall of protection around themselves. And so they protest too much - "Homosexuality is a sin and I would never ever engage in it." "My wife and family are the most important things in my life." - and all the while they continue engaging in that behavior which they publicly deplore.
These people are pitiable on one level. But they are also thoroughly despicable for the pain they cause others with their self-righteous fulminations. And for that, they deserve to be exposed and made the butt of late night comics' jokes. It seems that Jon Stewart will not be running out of material any time soon.
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