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“The reactionary world has a contagion theory of homosexuality — gayness is something you are ‘infected’ with, and by moral weakness are seduced into. In the view of the reactionary world — and we see this in modern day Africa where traditional societies are firm in their belief that there were no homosexuals in Africa until Europeans arrived — being gay is something that one catches from other people. . . .
“One reason that Republicans are not falling on their swords as they have in so many past scandals . . . is that the fate of those who are cast out is not a cushy K-Street job, but ostracism. Compare this to the quiet resignation of a White House aid over [Jack] Abramoff recently, or the ending of the careers of DeLay, Ney or Cunningham. They literally could not get far away from the ballot box fast enough. Corruption is not a bar to continued employment, but homosexuality makes the bearer of infection radioactive. This is why conservatives such as Howard Kurtz, Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Caldwell are trying to put a firebreak between ‘gay’ and ‘pedophile’, or downplaying the scandal entire. They know that a purge of gay men from the upper ranks of Republicanism would do to the reactionary apparatus what AIDS did to the theatre world — erase half a generation of talent, well down into the farm team.”
