This morning Senator John McCain (R-AZ)is speaking at the commencement exercises of Liberty Univeristy, the Baptist school founded by The Reverend Jerry Falwell.
According to CNN, the speech will start at 9:30am. What I don’t understand is how Senator McCain can even be there. CNN also noted that the Senator called Jerry Falwell, and other evangelicals like him, promoters and advocates of intolerance. That was in 2000.
I guess now that the Senator is thinking about becoming “the President,” he is trying to mend old wounds with the radical right. Kind of sad really… I thought a couple years ago that if I were to ever have no choice and had to vote for a Republican, I would want to vote for Senator McCain. I guess my dreams of a moderate, tolerant, understanding and inclusive Republican in Washington, DC, was nothing more than a dream, indeed.
In March, I was a participant in a Soulforce Equality Ride event at Liberty University. Ultimately, we were arrested when we tried to enter the campus and talk to students and faculty. Jerry Falwell and Liberty University represents nothing but intolerance and exclusion. Jerry Falwell has used the Bible and God to hurt one group of people or another for the past forty or more years. He continues to do it today by excluding openly LGBT people from enrolling in his school and by kicking out already enrolled students who are found out to be LGBT during their time at Liberty.
It saddens me that Senator McCain is at that place. It saddens me that the Senator has sided with what symbolizes the worst in American religion and politics. It saddens me that the Senator has decided that intolerance and exclusion are characters and actions worthy of being honored and cherished.
I wonder if Senator McCain knows he has just made buddy-buddy with a guy who used to keep African-Americans out of his church because “God had separated the races for a reason” (not a direct quote)?
Welcome to InterstateQ.com, the commentary and opinion blog of civic journalist and progressive, LGBT activist Matt Comer. Hailing from Winston-Salem, N.C., Matt, 26, now lives in Charlotte, where he works as editor of 
You mean, GASP, McCain’s actually trying to act like a Republican for once?
I’m serious, I can’t believe it either.
Problem is, everyone knows it’s a farce. And by everyone I mean GOP primary voters. The guy doesn’t have a prayer. Maybe that’s why he’s trying to help out the good Reverend?
Ehhh, that was funnier when I thought it to myself. Oh well.
As far as I’m concerned, and many other LGBT people might feel the same way, Senator McCain is no longer an ally of ours. He used to be… but now, after siding with one of the most anti-gay religious figures in the nation, Senator McCain has lost it.
I think you need to choose your allies more carefully. If gays won’t even accept John freakin’ McCain, they’re not really looking for bipartisan support of their cause.
Senator McCain WAS an ally because he had refused to be a part of the radical right’s bigoted agenda. He now is a part of it and very quickly becoming one their tools. I used to see him as more moderate to liberal… not now.
I’m sorry, Matt, but that’s one thing that’s been pissing me off about the LGBT movement lately, it’s constantly an “us vs. them” issue.
McCain is the most moderate Republican in the country, the person who would clearly be most willing to to hear all sides of an issue, and you’re telling your flock to ignore him from now on because of one person he associates with. People do a lot of crazy things in an election year, even speak to Jerry Falwell.
I guess I just don’t get it. It seems to me that activists are just trying to find one more way to play the victim and further distance themselves from everyone they possibly can in an attempt to… I don’t know, you fill in the blank for me. What is it?
That’s why I hold it against you for being a Democrat. The Republican party isn’t changing because it doesn’t have members that WANT to change. I know, definition of conservative. But the fact that you share 98% of the same values that myself and other Republicans do and yet you still hold out because they don’t serve your interests on one issue irritates me. The only way the party can ever change is from within. Another guy I know that’s gay says the same thing, “oh, I could never be a Republican, they hate me,” and then proceeds to tell me how he wants to grab a gun and protect our borders against immigrants.
Anyway, McCain’s the biggest compromiser in the Senate right now, and you’re blowing him off anyway. Explain it to me further.