Regardless of what The Washington Post says, its “Civilities” advice column is not primarily about manners. It's a political correctness column, about adjusting to the new intolerance of anything that doesn’t offer complete acceptance of the gay agenda.
Steven Petrow isn’t really for “manners” when it comes to conservatives or religious traditionalists. On his Facebook page, he praised a “great interview” The Wall Street Journal conducted promoting the books of one of the biggest gay bullies around, “sex columnist” Dan Savage, who concluded a promotion for his book "American Savage" with this exchange.
SAVAGE. Rick Santorum… or the popes. Can’t pick. Can I have Rick Santorum read it to the popes? As for why … well, because I’m an a–hole, I guess. That’s why.
"Mr. Manners" supports the "Google Santorum" guy, the guy who boasted of licking doorknobs hoping to make Gary Bauer and his fans sick.
In his first column for the Post, Petrow complained “Of course, as much as things have changed much hasn’t. Same-sex marriage is legal in 17 states, but not in the other 33. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is still not federal law. Anti-gay bullying seems as prevalent today as five years ago. And transgender acceptance is still in its infancy.”
Petrow is also in favor of "outing" legislators who are believed to be gay. In discussing Kirby Dick's documentary "Outrage," on that subject, which implied Sen. Larry Craig, among others, must be gay and must be outed, Petrow wrote at The Huffington Post.
To cut to the chase, we have two conflicting values at war here: privacy versus hypocrisy. At the time I wrote Gay Manners - back in the '90s --I often said in interviews that were I to have known that Senator Jesse Helms had had same-sex relationships, I thought it completely appropriate that they be disclosed and that he be outed. The harm his policies caused to LGBT people in this country - for instance, his hatred of gays and his refusal to support AIDS funding initiatives - would have been more than sufficient to outweigh any right to privacy.
Today we have a new cadre of elected leaders who vote against LGBT rights and under cover of dark - or away on vacation - maintain liaisons with same-sex companions. That is the definition of hypocrisy and as gay Congressman Barney Frank says in the film: "People who make the law ought to be subject to the law."
Manners usually takes up on the side of privacy, but when hypocrisy is at play, truthfulness and honesty are our more important companions in our struggle for fairness and equality.
But what if the politician isn't really homosexual? See? "Our struggle" will beat "Manners" any day of the week. Just three weeks ago, Petrow even took to defending Alec Baldwin when he tweeted at a former Romney aide that his Twitter profile picture looked like he was going to offer oral sex to Romney:
“This one is an attempt at reputational extortion,” Steven Petrow, the former president of the National Gay & Lesbian Journalist Association, told FOX411. “Garrett Jackson was on his knees in the photo with Gov. Romney and he did everything he could to provoke Mr. Baldwin. Sometimes ‘on your knees’ is actually just ‘on your knees.’”
Earlier: The New Age of Gay Mr. Manners
