Remember back six weeks ago when I said that John McCain was looking for an anti-gay running mate? Well, he found one in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin a few days later. I’ve kept schtum here on the blog, but I decided that it was time to speak up after her interview with Katie Couric.

In the Couric interview, Governor Palin had this to say:

But you are talking about, I think, a value here, what my position is on homosexuality and can you pray it away ’cause I think that was the title that was listed in that bulletin. And, you know, I don’t know what prayers are worthy of being prayed. And I don’t know what prayers are gonna be answered or not answered. But as for homosexuality, I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships.

I have, one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years who happens to be gay. And I love her dearly. And she is not my “gay friend.” She is one of my best friends who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made. But I am not gonna judge people. And I love America where we are more tolerant than other countries are. And are more accepting of some of these choices that sometimes people want to believe reflects solely on an individual’s values or not. Homosexuality, I am not gonna judge people.

Here, Palin is using the same coded language that many anti-gay people use. Her use of the word “choice” three times is indicative of an attitude that is based not on truth and reason, but on ignorance. She considers homosexuality to be a “choice” that one can decide to make rather than what it’s been proven to be: a natural state of being that a person doesn’t decide on.

And her claim that she “[doesn't] know what prayers are worthy of being prayed” sounds good on the surface, but when you dig just a little bit into what that means, you discover that she’s saying that maybe you can pray the gay away. Again, this is based on ignorance.

What Palin doesn’t say is as important as what she does say. She doesn’t say that the conversion therapy her church (whether she’s a member or not is pretty irrelevant) endorses and Mr. Dobson’s group provides is harmful. She doesn’t mention the physical, psychological, and spiritual violence that such therapies encourage. She doesn’t acknowledge the readily available statements of respected medical and mental health organizations against conversion therapies.

The “I even have a gay friend” thing is silly, so I won’t even go into it here except to mention that Dan Savage of Savage Love has started an application drive for the position of Sarah Palin’s Gay Friend. I haven’t put my application in yet, but I’m working on it.

Of course my opinions about what Sarah Palin really thinks about The Gays are all just supposition. After all, I hadn’t even heard of her until six weeks ago. So in the interest of fairness, I’ll close with what the Human Rights Campaign found LGBT folks from Alaska think about their Governor.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. A vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin is a vote for the restriction and reduction of basic civil rights. America can’t afford that anymore.

Related posts

• Joe the Plumber: “People Don’t Understand the Dictionary” and Other Meditations
• Barack Obama Has My Vote
• He Thinks It’s Funny
• Worse than Westboro
• Religion and Homosexuality: A Match Made in Heaven