The Congressman Goes Both Ways

By Rick Horowitz

MILWAUKEE -- Let's see: Leather bars on every corner. No-knock entry for the Fashion Police. Mandatory interior-decorating classes in our public schools. Taxpayer-subsidized limp-wrist transplants for all baby boys.

You let them get started, and they'll never stop! That's just the way they are.

Gay people, that is, always pushing that gay agenda of theirs. Luckily, there are a few courageous public officials who see exactly what's going on, who are ready to stand up for the rest of us -- no matter how ridiculous it makes them look. People like Mark Neumann.

Mark Neumann is a second-term congressman from right here in Wisconsin. He'd like to be a first-term senator from right here in Wisconsin, and he's casting a hungry eye at Sen. Russ Feingold's seat (I'm speaking politically, of course), which is up for grabs (ditto) in 1998. To move from one side of the Capitol to the other, Neumann is busy bouncing around the Badger State, testing the waters and spreading the word.

And putting his foot in his mouth.

This particular insertion occurred just the other day in La Crosse, Wis., when Neumann responded to a question from the audience at a Christian Coalition meeting.

"If somebody walks in to me and says, `I'm a gay person, I want a job in your office,'" Neumann declared, "I would say that's inappropriate, and they wouldn't be hired, because that would mean they are promoting their agenda."

The news reports don't say whether Neumann actually spelled out "their agenda" in all its lurid detail, but he hardly needed to; everybody knows what "they" want.

This is the kind of situation that happens all the time, don't you think? Somebody coming up to a congressman and announcing, `I'm a gay person, I want a job in your office"? Especially a congressman like Mark Neumann, who's already on the record saying, "If I was elected God for a day, homosexuality wouldn't be permitted"?

But just in case somebody were to approach him that way, Neumann wanted his audience to know, he was prepared for it. How comforting.

Anyway, you'll be less than shocked to hear that Neumann's comments attracted some attention from the busybody brigades. They were only too happy to point out that while there's no federal law prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation, there is such a law in Wisconsin. If Neumann were your average local employer, these busybodies insisted, and practicing what he preached to the Christian Coalition, he'd be over the line.

But who cares what the busybodies think, right? Neumann isn't going to get their votes anyway. It's the religious conservatives he's after.

And now it's the religious conservatives who are ticked at him. The latest word, strange but true: It turns out that back in April, at the behest of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay advocacy group, Neumann signed a pledge not to discriminate against homosexuals.

"A deal with the devil," the conservatives are hissing. "An unholy alliance with the homosexual community."

And cute -- maybe too cute for either side's comfort. So he won't discriminate against gays? But he won't hire anyone who admits to being gay? If Neumann wants to go both ways on this one, so to speak, that's his choice. After all, the first item on lots of politicians' agendas is "Get the votes."

But right this minute, the guy looks positively...promiscuous.

 6/3/97