"The hypocrite's hope shall perish" - Job 8:13
This list doesn't include professional homobigots whose careers are built around spreading hate and misinformation about gay folks - individuals like Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Tony Perkins, Peter LaBarbera, Shirley Roper-Phelps, Bishop Harry Jackson, Alan Chambers, Elaine Donnelly, Lou Sheldon, Bill Donohue - and the hundreds of others who have discovered that generating H8 can also generate cash.
These are public figures who constantly profess "family values." They cite their Biblical beliefs as a reason to deny equal rights for LGBT Americans. Their hypocrisy lies either in their actions or in hateful speech that contradicts Jesus' exhortation to "Do unto others."
Republican senator Larry Craig top-tapped his way into the Bathroom Stall of Shame when he made unwanted sexual advances to an undercover officer in an airport toilet. He was arrested and charged with lewd conduct. Craig pleaded guilty, blaming the incident on his "wide stance." In numerous television appearances, Craig proclaimed, "I am not gay. I have never been a gay." One year after his arrest, Craig sponsored a federal anti-gay marriage amendment. He also voted against hate crimes legislation. The Idaho lawmaker retired from office in 2009.
Republican senator and secret diaper fetishist David Vitter paraded his Pampers-clad booty in front of God knows how many D.C. prostitutes. After Vitter's kinky pastime was exposed, he called a press conference and told constituents "how very sorry" he was for "causing real pain." (I hear that stiletto heels on a bare back cause real pain, too.) Louisiana voters forgave him, and he returned to Washington D.C. where he signed on as co-sponsor to Larry Craig's anti-gay marriage amendment. Most recently, Vitter vigorously opposed Senator Al Franken's anti-rape law, which should make him even less popular with women.
Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina touted his "Christian family values" while cheating on his wife with an Argentinean mistress. The anti-gay Republican at first denied the affair, but when it became apparent that the media was catching up with him, Sanford held a series of on-camera interviews where he shed many tears. His constituents also shed tears once it was discovered that their tax dollars had been used to finance Sanford's illicit junkets.
Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern made the news when she announced that gays were worse than the terrorists who killed over 2,700 American citizens on Sept 11, 2001. The crusty Republican says she believes in "Christian love" - but the words coming out of her mouth are anything but Christ-like. She simply cannot speak about gays and lesbians without using descriptors like "perverted," "sinful," and "sodomite." Kern's hypocrisy is revealed in part of a speech she made earlier this year: "These behaviors should be exposed and attacked; however, we should love the people involved in these behaviors and tell them God has a better way." Her vicious rhetoric has nothing to do with love, and it creates a climate in which hate crimes flourish. It's worth noting that Kern's husband, a Southern Baptist minister, thinks gays should be rounded up and "forced into treatment centers." (Would that be God's Gulag?)
Republican senator John Ensign of Nevada, who regularly condemns the "homosexual lifestyle" and insists that "marriage is sacred," broke his own sacred vows by engaging in a sleazy affair with campaign staffer Cynthia Hampton. Ensign later paid Hampton $96,000 in hush money to "make it all go away." His case is currently under investigation.
All the times Reverend Ted Haggard was bashing gays and lesbians from the pulpit, he was secretly using drugs and seeking sexual gratification from a male prostitute. Despite the pastor's recent attempts at rebranding himself as a non-hater, the boyish Haggard remains focused on his own personal "trials." He is totally oblivious to his hypocrisy or the hurt he's inflicted on LGBT Christians. His half-hearted apologies are for the things he did, not for the things he said. This is what one might expect from a person who's been born again and again and again.
New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate slashed his girlfriend's face with a broken bottle, dragged her by the hair, and slammed her head against the walls of an apartment building. (The incident was caught on tape and went viral on Youtube.) Mere days after being found guilty in the attack, Monserrate voted against marriage equality for same-sex couples. And now this monster says he wants to wed the woman he's been abusing.
Another opponent of gay marriage, Orange County Assemblyman Michael Duvall, bragged to a fellow GOP lawmaker about spanking his lobbyist girlfriend and how his semen "dripped" out of her during sex. It was also revealed that he's been cheating on that mistress with another mistress. Unfortunately for the 54-year-old husband and father, a nearby microphone was turned on and the entire exchange was recorded. Duvall, who promptly resigned, is being investigated for ethics violations since his girlfriend works for Sempra Energy, one of the state's largest providers of utilities.
Pope Benedict XVI told the impoverished citizens of Third World countries that using condoms makes the AIDS epidemic worse. (Untold thousands will die because of this.) He said that "saving" the planet from gays and lesbians is as important as saving the
rainforests from destruction (even though his own holy church provides cover for pedophile priests). Pope Benedict claims to love children - and yet he
insists that therapeutic abortion is far worse than the rape of a little girl.
Anti-gay Republican leader Newt Gingrich really believes in the "sanctity of marriage." He must - since he keeps doing it over and over and over. He admitted to getting oral sex from a campaign staffer when he was still married to his first wife. He served divorce papers on her while she was in the hospital, immobilized with cancer. He left his second wife for another woman and didn't even bother telling her in person. He called her on the telephone, delivered the news, and hung up. When he married a third time he tossed aside his life-long Baptist faith and converted to Catholicism at the request of his new spouse. To Gingrich, wives are like religion: disposable necessities. (Pictured: Vitter, Haggard, Gingrich.)