![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
Glenn Murphy, Jr., the recently elected chairman of the Young Republican National Federation (also the RNC Chair for Clark County, Indiana and formerly the YRNF Secretary) has been accused of sexually assaulting a sleeping man. Immediately following the accusation, he came up with an unrelated reason to resign, and the YRNF cleansed their website of his name.
Allegedly, Murphy and another YR were drunk and crashing at Murphy's sister's house. The other man apparently awoke in the morning to find Murphy giving him a non-consensual blow job. The Clark County (Indiana) Sheriff's Department is charging Murphy with "criminal deviate conduct", a Class B felony.
This seems like a good time to remind people that it's not healthy over the long term to keep your identity, especially including your sexual identity, under a shroud of secrecy. This is even more the case if you insist on associating with people actively hostile towards who you really are (as opposed to who you pretend to be).
Given how hostile many modern Republican organizations are to LGBTQ folks, if you feel you have to be a Republican, please be out of the closet and please push towards GOP acceptance of civil rights. The unhealthy environment in much of the party seems to result in an awful lot of stupid acts of sexual desperation like the one Murphy is accused of.
On a tangential note, since when is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
August 8 2007, 00:10:04 UTC 4 years ago
When is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
When your Max Blumenthal!
August 8 2007, 00:30:23 UTC 4 years ago
Re: When is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
Something tells me that Max Blumenthal isn't a Young Republican ;-)Incidentally, while the focus of the video is the arguably off-topic filming of College Republicans trying to explain why they support the war but refuse to enlist, it's still worthwhile to jump to "3:34" on the countdown timer to watch a young Republican man trying to deny some serious sexual identity issues.
I'm sure everyone here has met someone like that.
August 8 2007, 00:32:43 UTC 4 years ago
Re: When is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
No Max actually is a "hitman," for the nation magazine...yeah I loved the sexual identity stuff, as well as Tom Delay blaming abortion for todays immigration problem.....woot..August 8 2007, 00:57:14 UTC 4 years ago
Re: When is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
There must be a better way to respond when people from the opposite party come to your convention.August 8 2007, 01:25:39 UTC 4 years ago
Re: When is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
Guess not...August 8 2007, 03:20:23 UTC 4 years ago
Re: When is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
Well, on one hand, I haven't heard of any conservative press or filmmakers being turned away, or even discouraged to film, at the College Democrats of America's recent convention, that's probably the closest Democratic analogue to the event Blumenthal was filming. Incidentally, none of the CDA's invited speakers are awaiting trial on corruption indictments, either. Tom DeLay is an awfully strange choice to have as a speaker at your convention.On the other hand, I haven't heard of any members of the conservative press or filmmakers appear to negligently jostle a convention goer while doing an "interpretive dance" to annoy security [1:05] while filming a convention, either. Having worked as convention security before, I'd find it hard to allow someone to stay in a panel room with a popular speaker after a stunt like that, regardless of politics or press credentials.
August 8 2007, 03:35:12 UTC 4 years ago
Re: When is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
Well, it is unusual. But it sort of enforces everyone's stereotypes of everyone else. But I guess the parties weren't formed to have tea parties.August 8 2007, 03:36:28 UTC 4 years ago
Re: When is a 33-year-old man like Murphy a "Young Republican"?
I don't the organizers had any real clue about Max until the end. His father is more known than him, even though he was @ The Nation for a long time.August 8 2007, 05:00:35 UTC 4 years ago
Those values may be inconsistent with what the national Republican party has pushed for, but that doesn't mean we can turn around on a dime and support someone like Hillary (although I am very fond of Obama for his personal qualities.)
That said, this guy's an idiot if he did that. An absolute idiot. It's NOT hard for gay Republicans, closeted or not, to get sex. I live and work in Washington, DC and I can tell you there are quite a few young gay Republicans out there.
August 8 2007, 13:30:08 UTC 4 years ago
Incidentally, I want those things too, which is why I find myself generally voting for Democratic candidates. There is clearly something more going on there.
Those values may be inconsistent with what the national Republican party has pushed for, but that doesn't mean we can turn around on a dime and support someone like Hillary (although I am very fond of Obama for his personal qualities.)
?? At no point in this post did I say that people should support Hillary Clinton, or any other Democratic political candidates. I'm not even suggesting you leave the Republican Party.
My post is advice on how to keep safe and sane in actively hostile groups like portions of the Republican party machine. My suggestions for Gay Republicans boils down to: be out of the closet and actively participate with the Log Cabin Republicans. This suggestion is to minimize the risk of psychological damage.
That said, this guy's an idiot if he did that. An absolute idiot. It's NOT hard for gay Republicans, closeted or not, to get sex. I live and work in Washington, DC and I can tell you there are quite a few young gay Republicans out there.
Washington DC is a cosmopolitan town with a great deal of social freedom. It is not an example of the country at large.
Murphy is in Clark County, Indiana. Specifically, until this scandal broke, he was the head of the County RNC. As such he was expected to, among other things, be actively working to get a Indiana State Constitutional Amendment passed in 2006 that would ban same-sex marriage as well as limit the rights of any unmarried couples. When that failed, he was also expected to be actively working to get a similar amendment on the ballot for 2008.
Being required by your position to push for laws to torpedo your civil rights, and the rights of others. I'd say that's a damn hostile environment, even if there wasn't any quieter discrimination going on (and I'd be shocked if there wasn't).
He was supposedly leaving this position now that he was YRNF Chair, but I have no more than passing familiarity with that organization, so I don't know whether that would appear to be a less or more hostile environment for someone like Murphy. I do know that I've seen a frightening amount of active, violent homophobia in the "Young Republican" males I've met, including frequent comments along the lines of "If a guy were to (make a pass at me/ask me out) I would (beat the crap out of them/kill them)". I would guess there was at least some hostility in the position he was going to.
It's not about whether or not he can find sex, it's about whether or not he has the personal freedom to be himself. People who feel forced into being someone they're not, often end up doing dumb and destructive things, especially as you start getting older.
August 15 2007, 23:05:36 UTC 4 years ago
Well, this is on a Republican scale, right? *ducks*