Does Ken Mehlman Deserve A Second Chance?

The video companion is here: http://youtu.be/1V7sFXar4Ts

Remember these guys: Ed Schrock and his voice personal ad? Larry Craig and his wide stance? Ted Haggard’s meth and man ass? George Alan Rekers and his rentboy scandal? What about that Puerto Rican Senator Roberto Arango who was “documenting his weight loss” (I personally wonder what his naked exposed butt hole has to do with weight loss, I guess it could take a cannon and now it could hardly take a cucumber). This was exposed to the media after pushing a constitutional amendment banning marriage? A local example: Craigslist Chris Lee who was looking for trans women to have sex with. Then there’s Ken Mehlman…a man who basically was successful in getting 11 states to put bans in their constitutions, and when you really think about it, this was only the start of the backlash that would begin after Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said that a statute was unconstitutional that prohibited gay couples from marrying. In a 4-3 decision known mostly as Goodridge, MA became the first state to legalize the practice.

Now, I started out with anti-gay Republicans who were caught in gay scandals, but Mehlman was different.(video) No one wanted to put Mehlman on blast or Mary Cheney who basically exploited the gay community, made money off of those who bought whatever beer she was advertising and be Mum when it came to Bush Jr’s positions on marriage and pushing for an amendment to the US Constitution to prohibit marriage between gay couples. Most Repubs thought that DOMA was safe and could stand constitutional scrutiny. That may be the reason that they didn’t pass it at the time. However, may states from passed these starting in AK in 1998 to the most recent one in 2011 with North Carolina. This is Ken Mehlman’s legacy, using the gay issue to possibly get more votes for anti-gay Republicans. Whether the amendments got more votes and secured Bush a 2^nd term is hotly debated. Gay people, being pawns for an anti-gay agenda, it’s nothing new. Joe Jervis called Ken Mehlman a 21^st Century Roy Cohn, yet the difference is that Mehlman is trying to make up for the wide swath of discrimination he took part in. IN NY and NH he lobbied Republicans to vote on the side of equality and raised money for Q6 in MD, R71 in WA, Q1 in ME and to defeat MN’s marriage amendment. But in all this I have a little bit of an impasse. Mehlman was the darling of the Bush White House so much that Larry King Live edited out a portion of news where Bill Maher outed him. This was an anti gay crusade lead by the gay guy against gay people.

Now there are people who voted for Mark Sanford, saying “Everyone deserves a second chance” but would bash people like Anthony Weiner for tweeting a picture of his pecker to someone who wasn’t his wife. Remember when Senator Ensign of NV had an affair with a married staffer? Rick Santorum said he’d tell Weiner to resign but he gave a heads up to Senator Ensign.

So does Mehlman deserve a second look after leading the anti-gay charge? Am I the only one stuck between Fuck off and Maybe you’ve deserved your second chance? What do you read of it? Should Mehlman be at least given an apprehensive okay and short pardon for the damage he’s done? Could the gay rights movement have accelerated if he had not been involved in all this charging across the nation for conservativism?