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Sep
15
I’m just catching up with this story now, but here’s the meta on it:
1. This entry on Ohio Daily Blog includes the anonymous comment that intimates that Wood County Commissioner and possible Republican candidate for the OH-5 to replace Paul Gillmor (R) who died unexpectedly last week, Tim Brown, is gay.
2. Scott Pullins writing about whether sexual orientation should matter (Pullins says no).
3. Bill Sloat concisely summarizes, in this post on The Daily Bellwether, the salient points of the last 24-48 hours of what Tom Brown faced and includes a quote from the Sentinal-Tribune (local Bowling Green paper) article in which Brown describes the experience himself - including how his decision not to run is the direct result of a comment left on a blog by an anonymous author.
4. And finally, Lisa Renee stated the question and provides space for the debate on her post at Glass City Jungle, “Should sexual orientation matter when it comes to an elected official?”.
People have become so pre-occupied with goodness or worthiness as being a function of personal choices that ability is ignored at all costs.
To wit, these two comments from GCJ:
Maggie Thurber Said: on 9-15-2007 @3:51 pm
I think the article says more about Tim and his qualifications than anything an anonymous poster can say.I’ve worked with Tim for years and have nothing but praise for how he conducts himself and his actions in office. As a new commissioner, I often turned to him for help understanding complicated issues. He was always available and willing to assist me - and anyone.
In his many elections, this is the first time this has been an issue. I’m just wondering how many people actually knew or cared - and the answer to that is further indication that his private life has nothing to do with his excellent public performance as an elected official.
And this one:
So Tim Brown is gay? Big whoop! I’ve seen more irresponsible hetero elected officials really blunder the public offices day in and day out. If I was living in District 5, I’d vote for Tim for U.S. Congressman not because he’s gay but because he’s consistent and mild-mannered unlike Gardner and Latta. Last thing we need are “career-politicians” since both of them are term-limited in their respective state elected positions, and you wonder why it is term-limited it’s because we don’t want any elected individuals to make a career out of it. Whatever happened to running for office for civil reasons not for a career advancement?
Feh.
How often do we complain about competency in our elected officials, in our government employees? Now think about how often we complain about the sexual orientation of our elected officials.
Now think about which complaints affect your daily life as an Ohioan more.
What solutions are there?
Well, for one thing, we wouldn’t have to have the debate over whether sexual orientation mattered if campaigns were publicly financed. For, as Brown is quoted as saying in the Sentinel-Tribune article:
“The congressional race is going to be expensive and putting forth a positive message about jobs and strengthening our economy will be difficult without the vast resources this race will require,” Brown said.
But what about blogs? If blogs didn’t exist, would “anonymous” have found another venue for outing Brown?
We’ll never know.
Sphere: Related ContentBy Jill Miller Zimon at 10:03 pm September 15th, 2007 in Elections, Ohio, Politics
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19 Responses to “Evidence of blog influence: Anonymous comment leads Ohio politician to withdraw from race”
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Shalom Jill,
Nothing sexual that involves consenting adults ought to have anything to do with whether or not a person is electable.
Having said that, I’d want to know if Brown has ever voted or lent support to anyone who has voted in favor of legislation restricting the rights of anyone who has a sexual practice that does not involve legally married heterosexuals engaged in the missionary position solely for the purpose of procreation.
B’shalom,
Jeff
[…] Evidence of blog influence: digg_url=”http://havecoffeewillwrite.com/?p=4812″; digg_skin = […]
not being able to distinguish whether one is a man or woman doesn’t bode well for the prospect that the person will be able to make quality choices at any level.
Well, for one thing, we wouldn’t have to have the debate over whether sexual orientation mattered if campaigns were publicly financed.
What?
That’s an unwarranted quantum leap from the comment, Jill. Don’t even know where to start.
Not homo Joe, clearly you have no understanding of homosexuality at all. You’re confusing it with transgendered people, who are human beings as well, and on top of this, you seem to think a person must distinguish their own gender and sexual identities. Do you do that? Do you feel you went through a period where you had to clear up for yourself whether you were a man or a woman? Or gay or straight, or bisexual?
Most heterosexuals will say no, they didn’t. So why do you think a homosexual would? They, like you, know who they are, and are not confused about whether they are a man or a woman.
And even if they *did* go through a period of trying to distinguish their sexual identity for themselves, I would think this might actually make them better at distinguishing what is right and wrong and help them in making quality choices for the quality of political life in America. They would have had lots of practice having to make decisions like that, what makes their own lives better and healthier, by having to consider their own lives in a way that any heterosexual does not have to, simply because heterosexuals fit into a normative category which allows many to walk through our little lives with blinders on, as you are doing.
Unfortunately we’re spending too much time discussing the candidate and not enough on the effect of anonymous comments on blogs.
See my post over here:
Jeff - exactly. That is a relevant line of questioning. HOWEVER - what if we never knew about Brown being gay? So, then, does it in fact become important for us to know? See, I don’t think so, as you suggest in the first part of your comment. But then, when you raise the possibility of whether he’s ever acted hypocritically or, on its own, voted or leaned toward legislation that we just don’t support, it looks a little differently. Yes?
not homo joe: Chris does a good job of addressing your comment. I have to agree - in my experience, being gay (sexual orientation) has nothing to do with not knowing what your gender is (gender identity). I also don’t think any questions about either subject that a person has reflects on his or her ability to be a good public servant.
Do you think adulterers’ choices show them to be people who are at ease with lying and carrying on duplicitous lives and betraying people who trust them?
Chris - Anytime a person demonstrates an ability to assess, analyze and resolve - regardless of the choice involved - that’s a good sign. People who refuse to reflect scare me a lot more.
Tom - that comment of mine is directly related to what Brown is quoted as saying in the Sentinel-Tribune piece about how, now that his sexual orientation is known, he doesn’t believe that he could ever raise enough money to run a competitive race.
I read between the lines, do definitely correct me if you think I’m wrong. But so long as people who run for elected office have to rely on who likes them and which special interests think they can get something from which candidate, an individual’s preferences - regarding sexual orientation or anything else - are going to play into how much money they can raise.
I went from there to saying that if candidate’s didn’t have to worry that funds would be dependent on those issues, but rather be made available, the same, to all who run (and meet whatever criteria we all decide must be met to be a viable candidate), then we can have candidates who run on their ability and whom we can judge on ability.
Sure, most of us may do that anyway - but I’m a huge proponent of taking the money issue out entirely.
And reading what Brown said made me think, immediately, that if we had publicly financed campaigns, his sexual orientation, as a factor in his running for office, would be neutralized significantly.
That’s a guess. I don’t know for sure, of course.
MW Territory - you’re absolutely right. Obviously the way the outing happened on the blogs is what caught my attention and what I’d much prefer to hear others reflect on. Thanks for the link to your post and I’m sorry I didn’t find it before. I embedded it too - I hope you don’t mind.
I’m not anonymous, and I didn’t post the comment. I didn’t even know who Tim Brown was or that he was thinking about running before I got some emails along the line of holy @#$% did you see this?
I got some good confirmation that it was true. And wrote my post. I also sent my post around to the SOB Alliance and some other blogs to provoke some discussion.
I’m with Jill, I am just blown away that this anonymous post could blow up this fast from the blogosphere, to the 527 media, to a point where Tim Brown admits he’s gay and decides not to run.
I allow anonymous posts on my blog but am forced to approve the comments because of spam and a little cyberstalker problem I’ve had over the last year. I likely wouldn’t have allowed that comment to go up on my site until I could have verified the info.
At the minimum I would have commented on it, stated there was no proof at this point etc. Bottom line, I think this one was more powerful than some accusations on political blogs because it mostly turned out to be true.
Jeff addresses the comment here.
Point of order:
The blow-up, from what I’ve read, wasn’t from the blogs to the media, Scott. It was from the blogs, to Tim Brown via a Republican he knows to Brown then withdrawing from the race. From what I’ve read, Brown chose not to run BEFORE any newspapers wrote about the blog comment (not post btw - though I gather you’re using post and comment interchangeably).
Yep, I probably was mixing. But the point remains, he got out of a race, admitting his sexual orientation, over an anonymous blog comment, which all was then picked up by the media.
Just amazing.
Scott! I’m giving you a side-wise You’re talking to a mom look. If you were mixing it up, then, even if the point remains, really - it is significant that Brown made the decision for whatever reasons, SEPARATE FROM a newspaper actually outing him. The method of the outing is absolutely significant in this story. I just don’t find it to be the most compelling aspect.
[…] Evidence of blog influence: Anonymous comment leads Ohio politician to withdraw from race (15) […]
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