North Dakota Republican Says He Was Outed As Gay By Democrats

Update:  I’ve spoken to Rep. Boehning and have more on this story here.

Apparently Rep. Randy Boehning, a Republican from Fargo, is gay.

I’d heard whispers about this in the past, and greeted them with ambivalence. It honestly doesn’t matter to me who a politician is involved with romantically unless it’s a) illegal or b) has some bearing on how he or she performs their job.

But apparently Democrats have been threatening Boehning with exposure because of his vote on SB2279, an anti-discrimination bill, and now he’s preemptively outing himself.

A North Dakota lawmaker who sent an explicit photo of himself to another man he was trying to pick up says he’s being forced out of the closet in retaliation for a recent vote against expanding gay rights. Rep. Randy Boehning, a 52-year-old Republican legislator from Fargo, says a Capitol employee told him a fellow lawmaker vowed to out him as gay if he continued to vote against bills granting gays legal protections against discrimination. Boehning refused to identify at this point who he believes is behind the purported political payback for his vote against Senate Bill 2279.

I say Democrats because, let’s face it, who else would do it? And every single lawmaker in Bismarck I’ve spoken to – about a dozen so far – have named one specific lawmaker as the one who did it. I haven’t confirmed that yet so I won’t name him, but this was a Democrat operation.

I’ll leave it to others to judge Boehning sending explicit pictures of himself – I guess his constituents will have to decide if they consider that behavior becoming of their elected representative – but can we pause for a moment and consider how absolutely disgusting it is that this man’s sexuality is being used against him?

The people responsible ought to be ashamed of themselves. You would think those who claim to be tolerant, who claim to be fighting for acceptance for those who are different, would be the least likely to wound someone in such a personal way simply because of their politics.

This is identity politics at its most foul. This idea that your sexuality or your skin color means that you have to fit into a certain political window is abhorrent. The people who espouse it are operating on the moral and intellectual level as those who think that whites can only marry other whites, or that women can only be stay-at-home moms.

Sadly, this is the scorched earth approach the gay rights movement is taking. You’re either with them, or they’ll do whatever they can do destroy you.