Miller to Maddow on gay rights: "I wanna be straight with you"

Rachel Maddow broadcast her show live from Anchorage on Tuesday night, after interviewing our U.S. Senate candidates and their supporters. Well, she interviewed Democrat Scott McAdams and write-in Lisa Murkowski, and finally got Tea Party Joe Miller to answer a few questions while walking through a building.

At one point she asked Miller, "Do you agree that homosexuality can be cured?" and he responded "it's a state issue." (Huh?) When she asked if he thinks being gay is a choice, he began part of his answer by saying "I wanna be straight with you." (I guess he doesn't know that she's a lesbian.) Later in the interview, she corners him on the federal marriage ban, which he supports despite the fact that he thinks it's a state issue. (Gotcha.)

Watch the Miller "interview" here:


The other segment that covered LGBT issues in Alaska was her candid talk with Tank Jones, bodyguard for Levi Johnston and tour guide for Rachel. At one point she asked if people here are conservative on social issues and are anti-gay, and he gave an interesting response:
No. Not here because we have... 3-4 gay bars here in this small town of Anchorage, and probably over half of the people that's in these campaigns are secretly gay but they won't come out. So we don't really have a anti-gay movement here like they have in other places because... diversity runs big here, very very big here, so we don't have that problem.
Well, there wouldn't be so many people afraid to come out if they felt accepted by the community, and we obviously do have that problem here. We also have an anti-gay movement. On the positive side, his answer is the only comment on the show about gay life in Anchorage, and it completely denies the existence of the anti-gays. Anyone who disses the local bigots is OK by me.

Watch the Tank segment:


The best part of the evening was Rachel's interview of Vic Fisher, a delegate to the convention that wrote the Alaska state constitution, and radio host Shannyn Moore. Vic points out that a constitution is designed to be a living framework, not a static document, and asks us to vote our values, not our fears. Shannyn notes that this election is part of an on-going feud between the Murkowski family and the Palin family. They both explain why we need to support and vote for Scott McAdams.

Watch the Vic and Shannon segment:


The other Alaska segments can be viewed on The Rachel Maddow Show and include interviews with Scott and Lisa and their supporters, and a great segment with ignorant Joe supporters. Between the taped sections, Rachel reported live from the Taproot Cafe in Anchorage. (Guess which bloggers can be seen behind Rachel?)

Thanks to Rachel and her crew for reporting from Alaska, and thanks to Shannyn Moore, Taproot and everyone who encouraged Rachel to visit. She rocks!

4 comments:

Maxine Doogan said...

Yeah, Tank's well meaning comments aren't accurate nor do they make sense, but it's our own fault. The LGBT political activist community doesn't have visibility. Those of us who are out and active are busy wading through retaliation and resistance from our own side who can't see the benefits of going beyond the status quote of make phone calls and donations for some candidates who may or may not make public statements about supporting our issues.

Where's all the photos, video and commentary from Equality Work's effort to pass the ordinance last summer in Anchorage? I'm asking because national shows like Maddow's usually do research on a an area near and dear to theirs, and our hearts, so they know who and what questions to ask and they've got a visual to use for their show. Because they didn't ask the right questions, it leads me to wonder what did they see when looking for Alaska LGBT political activists?

E. Ross said...

Maxine: Maddow and her crew were not interested in meeting Alaska LGBT political activists - their goal was to interview the 3 senate candidates and their supporters.

If they wanted to meet local LGBT leaders, they could have found our groups right here on Bent Alaska. The ordinance testimony and news is posted as well; look in the right hand column of the blog and click on All Ordinance Posts.

Maxine Doogan said...

I wasn't implying that activist be interviews, I was wondering why Tank didn't have the right info and Maddow have the right question around our issues..visibility is the main issue for this community, no?

Anonymous said...

I think the "I wanna be straight with you" line wasn't insinuating anything to do homosexuality rather more of a phrase used to express his ideas. Like the line "let me be straight with you" I think more under that context.

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