There’s a piece by Sara Jerde over at Talking Points Memo that may or may not be a little unfair to Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas. Now, Sessions is not some backbencher. He’s currently entrusted by the House leadership with the chair of the Rules Committee, and he used to run the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) which is in charge of recruiting people to run for seats in the House.
Sessions is taking criticism for seeming to question whether The Pulse nightclub in Orlando where the recent massacre took place is actually a gay club at all. It’s a little difficult to sort out the exact context in which he made his remarks, but it appears to have gone something this.
National Journal reporter Daniel Newhauser asked Sessions if the massacre of over four dozen people in a gay nightclub changed his opposition to something called the Maloney Amendment. This is a bit of legislation introduced by openly gay Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York’s 18th District. Maloney has been attaching this amendment to must-pass bills in an effort to force Republicans to agree to protections against discrimination for the LGBT community. For example, when he attached it to an Energy and Water appropriations bill, it had the effect of “specifically prevent[ing] contractors paid by funds allocated for energy and water projects from discriminating against employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
When Maloney’s amendment passed in the Republican House, the Republicans scurried away in panic, and the whole bill failed as a result. But Maloney wasn’t finished, as we can see in the news today.
After a Democratic congressman offered an LGBT measure as an amendment to the Defense Department spending bill, the House Rules Committee would not let the measure come up for a vote on Tuesday night, The Hill reported.
This is the third time that Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) has introduced the measure that would affirm anti-discrimination protections for LGBT employees of federal contractors as an amendment to a spending bill. On Tuesday, he said he hoped a vote on the amendment would send a positive message to the LGBT community in the wake of the deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida.
In other words, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, Pete Sessions, just blocked a vote on the Defense appropriations bill because it contained another version of Rep. Maloney’s pesky amendment. So, when Daniel Newhauser asked Sessions whether his position had softened in light of the massacre, he was really asking if Sessions was going to relent on his opposition to the amendment, and that is something that Sessions would not, and did not, do.
What Sessions actually said though was that The Pulse wasn’t really a gay bar, but more of a Latino bar where some gays hung out. As least, that’s how Newhauser interpreted his remarks. And Sessions’ office confirmed that the congressman was quoted correctly.
Sessions’ communications director, Caroline Boothe, told TPM that Newhauser’s quotes were correct but “taken out of context without the background information.”
“What my boss meant to say was that there weren’t only gay individuals at the club but people from all walks of life were present,” Boothe said.
She added that “at the end of the day we’re all Americans” and said Sessions’ heart grieved for everyone.
Perhaps this is a cultural miscommunication. I don’t know. When I lived in Philadelphia I was friends with a free-spirited woman who would get the urge to dance at a local gay nightclub named Woody’s whenever she got a couple of drinks in her. She dragged me down there on many occasions because it was a great place for a young woman to cut loose without the hassle of being hit on constantly by drunken men. This isn’t an unusual type of thing in our nation’s urban areas. Straight people drink and dance in gay nightclubs all the time because they throw a hell of a party. It’s no surprise that some of the victims in The Pulse were not gay. But I don’t doubt that this reality might be a bit hard to comprehend for folks from Pete Sessions’ 32nd District in suburban Dallas.
I think Sessions was mainly trying to deflect the stinging accusation in the question, which was that continued support for discrimination against the LGBT community in light of the massacre is grossly insensitive. The best he could do is point out that the Latino community was as heavily impacted as the gay community.
This is the kind of mess you get in when you’re not comfortable defending your political position on moral grounds.
Actually, Dallas has a thriving LGBT scene in Sessions’ district, in the Oak Lawn / Cedar Springs neighborhood. There’s no way he’s that ignorant — he’s just another Texas Republican demagogue.
It has been my personal experience (being an Old, this goes way back), that some gay bars tend to mostly be attended by gays only. Which is fine.
Other types of gay bars, especially some with good music and dancing going on, often have a mixed clientele. Part of it is, an indicated, that women (of whatever sexual preference) may enjoy such a scene due to less hassles and being able to be free-spirited. But even straight couples may go there to dance because its a great atmosphere or they like the music or whatever.
Sessions, imo, is being deliberately obtuse. It’s a dodge. Color me unsurprised.
I would like for the spokesperson clarify exactly what in the background information would change the “context” for his remark.
DC gay bars are very cliquey. They’re not as welcoming of straight women compared to other areas, at least that’s the word on the street and my girlfriend’s experience. Whenever I attended fundraisers hosted by the gay kickball leagues, I was usually the only straight guy there and I certainly didn’t get that vibe or feel unwelcome. But I’ve never been to the actual gay bar scene to differentiate. Plus a lot of people think I’m gay because of the way I dress.
Pete Sessions may or may not know about the gay bar scene in Dallas, but I think it’s clear that any attempt to downplay the fact that the target was, in fact, a gay bar is just more homophobia rearing its head. It’s the same mentality as the “All Lives Matter!” people have with respect to police violence.
Somebody needs to get in their fucking faces with a microphone and say look, you’re going to have to start talking about gays and Latinos and lesbians and other groups exactly the way you talk about white Christians, when those groups are hit by something, and if you can’t start doing that you’re going to have to fucking explain why not.
Anderson Cooper took important steps in this direction when he grilled Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday — he didn’t say, you know, how come you guys jump all over the press to insist “Christians were targeted” but get strangely silent when it’s these other groups, but he came close.
But enough is enough. Yes, “This is the kind of mess you get in when you’re not comfortable defending your political position on moral grounds.” Exactly right. And I’m sick of it. We’re all sick of it.
I get it that understanding who the victims were and what the gunman’s intentions might have been might help us deal with the tragedy and even reduce the chance of future ones.
But seriously, if we were to discover that the victims were all, say, left-handed hetero Rastafarians named Steve, this would make this less of a tragic mass murder how?
Because straight Christians, being the TrueAmericansTM, are the most persecuted group in America.
I mean, we all agree that the WarOnChristmasTM is being waged directly against straight Christians.
Hell, just this past December, I was told to have “Happy Holidays” after telling a stranger to have a Merry Christmas.
Trying to take the limelight away from straight Christian persecution is anti-American.
We may be moving away from the segregated gay bar concept, which is fine with me. In my town, the most lively and relaxed bar downtown is a “gay” bar. On a busy night, most of the patrons might be straight and not just straight women. It’s the happening place. But when it is slow, it is almost all gays – they are the core.
an issue most will never ever agree on. praying for the families who lost loved ones..