Please Call Congressman Louie Gohmert

Rob Tisinai

June 20th, 2013

The Honorable Representative Louie Gohmert is prone to confusion. Again and again, he says things that just aren’t true. And he just demonstrated his lack of mental clarity in this conversation with ThinkProgress:

THINKPROGRESS: Where do you stand on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act?

GOHMERT: I’m not aware of exactly which one you’re talking about

THINKPROGRESS: It would protect LGBT workers from being fired due to their sexual orientation.

GOHMERT: Who wants to go talking about sexual orientation when they’re working? Good grief.

Apparently the Honorable Representative Gohmert has forgotten this bit on his official government web page:

Today, he and his wife Kathy are the proud parents of three daughters.

Surely the Honorable Representative is no hypocrite. This must be another instance of his confusion taking hold. I suggest we call his offices and ask him to remove this bit of information that (“Good grief”) he himself would find offensive if he knew it was there.

I’ve already called both his offices. To paraphrase the conversation:

Me: I’d like to ask that the Congressman remove all references to his wife from his official website.

Them: His wife?

Me: Yes. He says that sexual orientation shouldn’t be discussed in the workplace, so he should start by removing all references to his own orientation from official communication.

Them: Okaaaay. I’ll pass that on.

His staff were quite pleasant to me, and I suggest offering them the same courtesy in return. Here are his numbers:

Washington D.C. office: (202) 225-3035

Tyler, Texas office: (903) 561-6349

We owe the Honorable Representative every assistance, given the intellectual demands of his duties and apparent ability to carry them out.

 

Charles

June 20th, 2013

And, really, what good would it do? Calling Louie Gohmert or passing the legislation. Just call me a cynic.

Timothy Kincaid

June 20th, 2013

Yes, the young man was quite polite.

David in the O.C.

June 20th, 2013

Just posted this on his Facebook page:

GOHMERT: “Who wants to go talking about sexual orientation when they’re working? Good grief.”

Fine. Remove all references to your wife and children from your website AND don’t ever mention them while you are working in Congress. That sounds fair, right?

Charles

June 20th, 2013

Rob and Timothy, does this legislation have any chance of passing? As I under a compromise was made about a week ago to take out the protection of transgendered people in the legislation. Thanks for any information.

Andrew

June 20th, 2013

I called. I explained that I whole-heartedly agree with Congressman Gohmert’s interest in keeping matters of sexual orientation out of the workplace. But… would he mind pulling down references to his sexual orientation down from his website? Because, like Congressman Gohmert, I find it bothersome.

Very polite, will pass it along.

I do recommend calling. EVERYONE should call.

Lucrece

June 20th, 2013

Even if it removed transgender protections, the bill would not pass under a Republican held house.

Despite trumpeting the Lisa Murkowskis of the GOP, Republicans are just more low key about being anti-gay. They don’t include it in their campaign material, but when it comes to a vote predictably it turns into the prejudice we all knew was going to rear its head.

This is the party that struck down protections for same sex partners in the immigration bill, the party that has been defending DOMA despite complaining about government spending, and it was the Republican House that nearly unanimously rejected DADT repeal, while John McTaint nearly derailed the bill in the senate.

Don’t be fooled. The Republican party is our enemy, but it’s not like we have the most firm of allies in Democrats when they chose to abandon us on immigration in order to appeal to socially conservative Hispanics that make a larger group of voters.

Ryan

June 20th, 2013

ENDA won’t pass until the Dems have control over both Houses and the Executive. And not just by a few votes, either. It will take another huge win like in 08 and a President willing to fight for it (unlike Obama, who prioritized Health Care, which was probably the right call). The only way Dems get another big win like that is after a Republican presidency implodes in a big way like Bush’s did. So we’re looking at 2024 at the earliest.

Oh, and this post is hilarious. It reminds me of Santorum in one of the GOP primary debates, saying that sexual orientation of any kind shouldn’t be discussed in the military, and the Tea Party audience cheering like seals. Which basically means Santorum advocated expanding DADT to include heterosexuals.
Of course, when they say “sexual orientation shouldn’t be discussed” what they mean is “homosexual orientation shouldn’t be discussed” but they can’t quite bring themselves to say something that transparently and nakedly discriminatory, so they instead wind up looking like idiots.

Ryan

June 20th, 2013

I have a tech question for Jim or Timothy: Every time I try to share an post from BTB on Facebook, it says the title of the post (in this case, “Please call Congressmen Louie Gohmert”) but underneath that, it always says “In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences…”
Is there some way to fix that?

Peter

June 21st, 2013

What always strikes me is how the religious right talks about “sexual orientation” as if it were a place on the human body somewhere along the inner thigh. Suddenly allowing people to “display their sexual orientation” is tantamount to an act of public indecency to them, when in fact sexual orientation is a lens through with a certain portion of the population experiences the world. This is not saying that all gay men are girly, etc or any other stereotypes, but that all of our relationships are affected by our sexual orientation – the kinds of relationships we form with women, the kinds we form with men, the kinds we form with our family (depending on their level of acceptance). Maybe an employee can’t mention his/her child because then a coworker might inquire “I didn’t know you had a kid, you never mention your wife”
“umm… I don’t have a wife, I’ve got a partner named David.”
Suddenly that’s TMI for Louis Gohmert?

My guess is that he really *hasn’t* given it much thought beyond the line he knows he needs to toe. For political reasons or because it would require him to recognize that he’s not actually fundamentally better than an entire subset of the human population because he has sex with women.

Timothy Kincaid

June 21st, 2013

Ryan,

I know. But as I’m not the most Facebook savvy guy on the planet, I don’t know how to fix it.

We do have a facebook page which posts our commentaries. Maybe linking to that would work. Otherwise, I am clueless.

Ryan

June 21st, 2013

Cool, I will like your page. I probably should’ve already done that.

Robert

June 21st, 2013

Ryan, it has to do with the page layout and the website design. The permanant stories box, to the right of your screen, is the only textual information that posts. But I’d send an email to Jim and let him know, just in case he does not see your post on here. We are developing a website ourselves at home and have had some of the same issues. It’s due to the template or the way they set up the permanant boxes that show up no matte what page you are on. We have not found a fix on our site, but are talking to the host site to see if there is a work around.

Steve

June 21st, 2013

Won’t do any good. I’m sure Gohmert is quite literally insane. He constantly says the most stupid and outrageous things imaginable.

Jim Hlavac

June 22nd, 2013

In 1993 I was working as a printer in New Orleans — I never mentioned the gay thing — printing and gayness having naught to do with each other — and one of my co-workers apparently saw me walk into a French Quarter bar late one night. The next morning, after 8 months on the job as a fine printer — I was pilloried as an evil, sick, demented, blah blah blah homosexual — and fired. Apparently not bringing it up at all wasn’t good enough.

Now that I’m a 55 year old unmarried — isn’t that a clue? Surely must be if 93% of all men get married — now what?

james

June 22nd, 2013

Having an opposite-gender wife and children is not proof of heterosexuality. It is evidence of fertility and sexual relations, but not proof of heterosexuality.

Rob Tisinai

June 22nd, 2013

James, having a same-sex spouse isn’t proof of homosexuality either, but that’s how it’s taken. Gohmert is referring to how people talk about their lives in the workplace, not actual demonstrations of physical acts (which, when you think about it STILL wouldn’t be proof of one’s orientation).

Nathaniel

June 27th, 2013

I know Ryan won’t see this, but somebody can maybe pass the word. The text in question is editable, via a double click. I often copy the first paragraph of the story I’m sharing to replace the default text.

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