Gay Republician Playing Cards Take On Homophobia And Hypocrites With Humor

Gay Republician Playing Cards Take On Homophobia And Hypocrites With Humor

Lesbiatopia
By Paula Brooks, Managing Editor
9/10/08



I think we all remember the Larry Craig saga… But for those of you who may have forgotten… Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho was long the darling of the Christian Right and its homophobic agenda. Craig supported the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would bar the extension of rights to same-sex couples and voted against a federal law containing a definition of hate crimes that covered sexual orientation. The Human Rights Campaign gave him a 0 rating. But Senator Craig genuinely became famous last year when he got caught soliciting for gay sex in an airport men’s room in Minneapolis, and nothing says ‘hypocrite’ better then supporting homophobic legislation in the Capital Building and then getting arrested soliciting for gay sex in an airport men’s rooms.

And that is exactly what Nathan Moore, Sanjay Bapat and Ryan Levey, a group of Medical students in Austin, Texas thought as well as they followed, not only the misadventures of Craig, but also those of former Rep. Mark Foley, who was accused in 2006 for sending sexually explicit messages to House pages, and Ted Haggard, a former president of the National Association of Evangelicals who resigned after admitting to patronizing a male prostitute. So many in fact, one of these guys happen to observe one day as they were watching the news there were probably enough of these Closeted Queer Gay Bashers around to make a deck of cards. And so were born the Gay Republican Hypocrites Playing Cards.

“We were just sitting around shooting the shit at a bar one day,” Nathan Moore, the 22-year-old co-creator of the cards said. “The joke was there’s enough of these guys to fill a deck of cards.” While Bapat, Moore and Levey are all Democrats, none of them are gay, but they do love making it a point to heckle Republican hypocrites every chance they get. In a phone interview with Lesbiatopia, Moore said this regarding why the trio created these cards…

“We’re not making fun of gay people with our cards and we aren't poking fun at these guys for being gay. We're pointing out their hypocrisy. We’re pointing out how all the people in the decks are the reason why it can be so difficult to be gay — because they’re out there telling people that’s it wrong, that it’s evil, that they shouldn’t be who they are. They do every thing they can do to make life hard for gays and we feel guys like this really need to be called out and put in their place.”

These professional grade, poker size playing cards have been gorgeously fact laden and are veritable miniature who’s who’s of political scandal, meant to call attention to the ridiculousness of GOP big shots who base their political careers on anti-gay platforms then get caught in compromising gay sex scandals.

Moore told Lesbiatopia that business has been very good too. “We took these to Austin Pride and they sold like hot cakes.” Then they took them to Denver and the Democratic National Committee where they sold over 3,000 packs. Moore said he wanted to take them to the Minneapolis during the Republican National Convention and to the restroom where Larry Craig was charged to sell cards there, but airport authorities had that particular restroom shut down for the duration of the RNC.

Moore also told Lesbiatopia that while the cards have all been meticulously researched from police records and press accounts for accuracy, a few of the face cards have not been altogether happy about being in the deck and have as Moore put it… “Been in contact” with the guys via their attorneys, but Moore declined to say just who had less than a good sense of humor about all of this. Despite the lack of a funny bone on the part of some Republicans about these cards or maybe in spite of it, we really like these here at Lesbiatopia and think everyone should own a deck. You can get yours by going to www.gayrepublicancards.com.

http://www.lesbiatopia.com/2008/09/gay-republician-playing-cards-takes-on.html">LINK