"It Was a Dark and Spermy Night..."
Published by Julia Volkovah under on 6:21 AM
I hear you, Michael Corleone. Just when I think I'm out, some right wing asshat pulls me right back in.
Some of you may recall Jon Stewart tearing Eugene Delgaudio a new one on the Daily Show last April. Delgaudio is a man who plainly has issues and even a layman such as me can make a pretty persuasive case that this man is about two glasses short of a pitcher of Koolaid.
Delgaudio is the District Supervisor for Sterling, VA and he's renowned for his bizarre fundraising letters in his ongoing battle against teh gays. Because of the very nature of the internet, with one mouse click leading to another, don't ask me how I crossed paths with this waste of trace elements but the important thing is I did.
Remembering that the Rude Pundit is famous for subscribing to Tony "Who's the Girl, Norman?" Perkins' Super Duper Prayer Team over at the Family Research Council, I went to this asshat's official website and took a brief survey. Despite the fact that I answered all six questions about gay rights the way you'd expect a liberal bisexual like me to answer them, I was immediately inundated with congratulatory emails from Degaudio's organization, Public Advocate (his unofficial job title). I thought it prudent to save his letters.
Now, before I continue, let me draw one distinction between genuine homophobes like Delgaudio and what I call (thank you, Bobby Gibbs) the professional homophobes. The pros are simply currying political or religious favor. They honestly couldn't give a shit if Elton John married David Furnish because they know it has no impact on their marriage. After all, you're responsible for the upkeep of your own relationship regardless of sexual orientation. That's just common sense and even your more pragmatic right wingers would admit as much if you were to bend elbows with them at a Bennigan's.
People like Delgaudio are something else entirely. His Twitter account that often screams about "the thought police" is good for a cheap chuckle but in order to get a more comprehensive view into his particular brand of unhinged lunacy, you simply have to subscribe to his fund raiser newsletters. Delgaudio is the most dangerous kind of homophobe: The kind that not only believes with all his heart that the LGBT community is out to get him, but even imagines stuff out of whole cloth.
Take, for instance, this Bulwer-Lyttonesque excerpt from last spring that was reproduced in full by Steve Clemons of the Washington Note:
One stormy night I drove to a mailshop hidden deep in a nearly deserted stand of warehouses. I'd heard something was up and wanted to see for myself.
As I rounded the final turn my eyes nearly popped. Tractor-trailers pulled up to loading docks, cars and vans everywhere and long-haired, earring-pierced men scurrying around running forklifts, inserters and huge printing presses.
Trembling with worry I went inside. It was worse than I ever imagined.
Row after row of boxes bulging with pro-homosexual petitions lined the walls, stacked to the ceiling.
My mind reeled as I realized hundreds, maybe thousands, more boxes were already loaded on the tractor-trailers. And still more petitions were flying off the press.
Suddenly a dark-haired man screeched, "Delgaudio what are you doing here?" Dozens of men began moving toward me. I'd been recognized.
As I retreated to my car, the man chortled, "This time Delgaudio we can't lose."
Driving away, my eyes filled with tears as I realized he might be right. This time the Radical Homosexuals could win...
But wait. Delgaudio's particular insanity, like fine wine and leather, just improves if not mellows with time. Because his latest fund raiser email is not only chock-a-block packed with the usual homophobic lunacy, it even comes with 40% more Freudian slips!
First the Homosexual Lobby rammed their disastrous Thought Control Bill into law.
The Homosexual Lobby is whipping up a tsunami of political momentum.
Jurassic, if we don’t act now, the Homosexual Lobby will ram it right down our throats.
If the Homosexual Lobby rams through the Gay Bill of Special Rights, the federal government will hand control of the American economy over to radical homosexuals.
If Public Advocate is going to to mount a successful lobbying campaign against the Gay Bill of Special Rights, I must have you sign the petition to your Congressman by clicking here.
Hmmm... Ramming. Ramming down our throats. Whipping. Mounting. Is anyone else getting turned on by this steamy, manly rhetoric?
But wait, it gets even better because Gene then figuratively pulls up a chair, skooches over and tells us in no uncertain terms how his crusade is affecting him personally:
Honestly, sometimes my job feels like the loneliest in the world.
It seems as though I have so few allies in my fight to defeat the Gay Bill of Special Rights. Every day, as I walk through the halls of Congress, I feel the eyes of radical homosexuals on me. Their hatred is obvious, and they are everywhere. They seem to have gotten to nearly everyone who was weak or wavering...
Now, granted, I'm not exactly what you'd call a purveyor of adult gay literature. But I would imagine the seedier examples would sound a lot like Delgaudio's weekly begs, sort of a "Dear Editor" contribution to Ramrod Monthly.
Indeed, in his fictions, poor Eugene seems to be surrounded by manly, longhaired, earringed, confident, forceful studs whose eyes slither over him. It is dark and stormy (or spermy. Who knows what his muse is holding back?), making one ask what he's doing skulking around warehouses looking for pro-gay literature during dark, stormy nights in the first place.
The funny thing is, Delgaudio said in his April newsletter that "homosexuals" make up only 1% of the population yet in his sweat-drenched fantasies, they always seem to surround him, as if he, I dunno, attracts them. Plus, we haven't the slightest idea of what percentage of the US population is gay, lesbian or bisexual on account of so many of us remaining in the closet. But I think most of us can agree that gays alone make up more than 1%. They don't all live in P'town, San Francisco, Fire Island and the Castro.
But making up facts is the least of Delgaudio's evils because this man is not only unhinged and living in some delusion that sounds like a John Waters version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers but this particular man is an elected official.
