Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

It is the second thing people ask me after making the requisite joke about her hair/makeup.  Frankly, I'm amazed (read: disappointed) at how catty us feminists can be when it comes to the appearances of women who are Republican.

But I digress. 

I don't care if Jane Orie is a lesbian. Stop foisting the unappealing zealots into our tribe.  Stop with the family values folks who get caught at gay clubs. Stop with the self-loathing ex-gays.  Stop with the …. wait a minute.  It is actually okay if these people are gay, even if they are struggling to accept or identify.

But when well-intentioned liberals whisper “Well, you know she's an unmarried woman of a certain age so she must be a lesbian” it doesn't make it OKAY because she's a conservative Republican.  It is still offensive.  It feeds right into the furor that being gay is something you keep secret, not to mention that horrible state of affairs of being a woman without a man (and a ring).

Don't get me wrong. I am a fan of exposing hypocrisy.  Jane Orie does not have a gay-positive voting record, but to expose something you need more than innuendo and impending spinsterhood for God's sake.  And sure as people like to search for themselves in “the Google” and end up here, plenty of folks are going to search for dirt on Jane anyway and end up at this slap-in-your-face post.  Good.  Welcome. 

Here's what I wonder. In the race for Supreme Court, how many Western Pennsylvania Democrats supported Joan Orie Melvin rather than an Eastern Pennsylvania liberal? I wonder if Mr. Potter might explore that a little bit …how “invested” were Jack Wagner, Dan Onorato, Luke Ravenstahl, Wayne Fontana, Jay Costa, etc. in the Jack Panella campaign.  I guess I need to look into that a little bit.  Did our Dems do right by us in that race?  Could we have been spared the three Orie circus and focus on issues like redistricting and gay divorces and so forth?

Seriously. Enough with the woman bashing.  Her actions speak for themselves.  We don't need to go there.