Ken Blackwell, a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, said that and more to gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile in September.

On his blog, Signorile comments:

It’s a far cry from the days when the RNC was led by the 38-year-old “bachelor” of questionable sexual orientation, Ken Mehlman, but, according to The New York Times, Blackwell, a failed Ohio gubernatorial candidate who compared homosexuality to arson and kleptomania at the height of the campaign, may well be the RNC’s next chair.

Signorile has posted audio from the complete 13-minute interview along with transcribed excerpts.

Here are some selected clips:

Ken Blackwell: What I said is that, in that regard, you can choose, people choose to be who they are, as they choose to break civil law and God’s law…I think you can choose not to be homosexual…

Michelangelo Signorile: Did you choose to be heterosexual? Did you wake up one day and say I want to be heterosexual?

KB: The answer is that I’ve never had to make the choice because I’ve never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual, but if in fact I had the urge to be something else I could have in fact suppressed that urge.

***

MS: But you realize people were insulted when you compared [homosexuality] to arson and kleptomania. I would like you to explain that because, how does that get into this whole “choice” issue? I mean, kleptomania is a compulsion.

KB: Well, the fact is, you can choose to restrain that compulsion. And so I think in fact you don’t have to give in to the compulsion to be homosexual. I think that’s been proven in case after case after case…

***

KB: Where you and I disagree is that I do not think homosexuality manifested in behavior is a behavior that should in fact make us change the laws of this land.

MS: But many laws have been changed already. The Supreme Court says that homosexual behavior is not illegal. Arson is a crime. If somebody burns your house down, that’s hurting you, hurting other people. The Supreme Court has said if it’s in your bedroom it’s not hurting anybody else.

KB: If in fact you would feel better for me to say to you that, one, I believe homosexuality is a compulsion that can be contained, repressed or changed, and that makes you feel better, then that is what I’m saying in the clearest of terms.

Blackwell’s factually challenged opinions are clear and direct — free of the obfuscation and deliberate confusion that Exodus International practices. Like Exodus’ leadership, however, Blackwell essentially denies the existence of sexual orientation and equates all sexuality with behavior, not romantic or physical attraction.

Blackwell’s prescription for America: Be celibate and unromantic for life — or marry someone to whom you’re not attracted and then fake a romantic and sexual relationship until your spouse demands a divorce.

Blackwell’s position regarding human relationships is anti-family, inhumane, egotistical, and disconnected from reality. In short, it’s an embarrassment to the GOP.

An appointment of Blackwell to lead the Republican Party could be very good news for the Democratic Party at a time when its base is beginning to question the party’s own commitment to “change.”

The National Black Justice Coalition is a civil rights organization dedicated to empowering black LGBT Americans.

In a Nov. 19 article for The Advocate, NBJC CEO H. Alexander Robinson offers insights about the black-white divide and how to mend it going forward.

Excerpt:

…We can draw some lessons from an analysis of turnout and its correlation to racial demographics that are obvious on their face. For one, we know that too few resources were dedicated to influencing African-Americans’ perceptions (and votes) on LGBT issues during this election. Of the approximately $40 million raised to fight the propositions, scant resources were directed toward the black vote in California, no attention was paid in any meaningful way in Florida, and we were hardly considered as a group to influence in other states with anti-LGBT propositions.

President-elect Obama was against Proposition 8 because he did not feel that states should put discrimination into their constitutions. Although he has said that he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, he also believes our families should have all the rights, benefits, and responsibilities afforded to him and his wife. A serious consideration of his nuanced position would have been a good place to start a discussion about full equality in the African-American community.

As we go forward, we need to be mindful that our foes will continue to attempt to use President-elect Obama, the black church, and campaigns of deception and fear to foster their own agenda in manipulative and devious ways. President-elect Obama’s opposition to same-sex marriage is grounded in his view of marriage as a religious institution. We must be steadfast in not allowing public officials to use religion to determine their positions on matters of justice. We know as a community all too well that this reasoning can be harmful to blacks as well as LGBT people.

On Election Day, 70-percent of African Americans voted to take away a gay person’s right to marry primarily based on a book – the Bible – that calls on slaves to obey their masters. Mormons funded the measure – even though religious discrimination drove them from Missouri and Illinois in the 1830’s

The defeat of Proposition 8 can’t be blamed exclusively on African Americans and Mormons. There were plenty of white Catholic and protestant religious leaders – such as pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church – that share responsibility. And, there are legitimate questions about how the No On 8 campaign was run, which will be endlessly debated. For example, did the campaign’s decision to closet gay people in its ads lead to defeat?

Still, there is something particularly galling and repugnant about people who have felt the sting of discrimination, turn around and step on another minority. What happened at the ballot box feels like a personal betrayal and the hijacking of history. (Read More)

One of several letters to the editor published Friday in the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Even as we celebrate Barack Obama’s historic election, it should be noted that according to exit polls in California, 70 percent of African-American voters supported the gay-marriage ban.

I hope that the African-Americans who voted against marriage equality will eventually take to heart the lesson it took white Americans so long to learn: when we deny the rights we treasure to others, we only diminish ourselves.

Jack Drescher
New York, Nov. 6, 2008

The writer, a psychiatrist, is emeritus editor of The Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health.

Emulating Our Opponents Is No Way To Move Forward, Says TWO

Truth Wins Out today expressed its grave disappointment in those in the LGBT community who have emulated our bigoted opponents by scapegoating minorities. It has been reported that African Americans have been verbally abused and have had racial epithets hurled at them during Anti-Proposition 8 rallies.

“It is reprehensible to look for scapegoats and target innocent people with vile racial epithets,” said TWO Executive Director, Wayne Besen. “We call on all GLBT people behave intelligently and act responsibly, so we can figure out – together – the best way for our movement to proceed and achieve equality.”

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.

PFOX — Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays — was co-founded by ex-gay activist Anthony Falzarano and the Family Research Council in 1996. When Falzarano complained in 1999 that the ex-gay movement was being exploited and underfunded by religious conservatives, he was ousted and replaced by antigay parents of adult gay individuals. Contrary to the organization’s name, few PFOX members appear to have ex-gay relatives.

Today the Virginia-based organization is led by executive director Regina Griggs, whose son is openly gay. Its board includes antigay federal civil rights attorney Estella Salvatierra, who spends various weekends at Northern Virginia public fairs, inciting arguments with bewildered passers-by. With the help of FRC’s Peter Sprigg, PFOX has fought against popular efforts by parents in Washington, D.C.’s Maryland suburbs to establish factual and comprehensive sex-ed programs and to reduce discrimination against gender-variant Marylanders.

In a racially charged rant that was distributed April 1 via PFOX’s online discussion board and official e-mail address, PFOX’s unidentified site administrator parrots an article which ignores established wisdom about gender identity disorder. Specifically, the article fails to make important distinctions among transsexuality, transvestism, biologically or genetically intersexed individuals, and other transgender conditions.

Instead, PFOX’s article reprint lumps a variety of different biological and psychological gender variances together — and then ridicules them all with the unexplained rationale that taxpayers who experience gender variance, for biological or psychological reasons, should not be granted the same access to public facilities that is granted to persons of color or other taxpaying demographics. (Read More)

Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. visited Exodus speaker Ken Hutcherson at his Seattle-area megachurch recently and today offered observations about Hutcherson’s betrayal of his own victory over discrimination — and Hutcherson’s exploitation of “ex-gays”. (Read More)