Say It To My Face Orrin Hatch

Here’s the first in a brand new series at Deep Something. I’m sick and tired of hearing the Republicans and krazy kristian kooks like the American Family Association and Tony Perkins and many others just make shit up about gay people and the issues faced by LGBT people in this country (and around the world). They do it because they get to try to hide behind press releases, podiums, security and websites. So I’ve decided to call them out. I’m going to find a number and do my best to get through to them or their staff person, and I intend to respectfully and thoughtfully challenge them to say it to my face (or at least over the phone).

First up was Orrin Hatch early this week. The Utah Senator was at a town hall meeting in St. George, UT when he decided he needed to snuggle up to the Tea Baggers. So Hatch said, “Gays and lesbians don’t pay tithing, their religion is politics.”

So I called Senator Hatch’s office. I explained to the staffer the reason for my call, and expressed my disgust at the fact that the Senator would just make up a statement like this without even knowing me. I asked him to explain why the Senator would say such a thing. Naturally, his first response was to claim the Senator didn’t really mean it “that way.” So I asked him to explain in “what way” the Senator meant it…which he couldn’t. So then he admitted he didn’t know why the Senator would say that, so I asked to speak to the Senator to get that understanding. He was, of course, too busy.

I responded that I suspected the Senator wasn’t too busy, but was just not man-enough to say it to my face. I then asked the staff person, given that Senator Hatch could go around just making up stuff about me, could I just go around making up stuff about the Senator…that maybe I should issue a statement saying the Senator and me had been engaged in a many-years running torrid homosexual affair that included drugs and drunken debauchery?

I loved the staffers immediate response (before he started trying to roll back his statement…you could definitely picture him trying to reach through the phone and pull the words back in). He said, “Why would you want to do that, then you’d just be stooping to his level.” Indeed Senator.