The gay old party.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: Unplugged - United States Republican Party - Column

The GOP is so queer. Not gay queer. Pre-Queer Nation queer.

Mitt Romney, though certainly ruggedly hand some, perfectly coiffed, and well dressed, is queer. Odd queer. Most of the kids do not want him to play on their team. Right in front of him, they try to draft someone else--anyone else but him. His flip-flopping is extreme people-pleasing. Mitt is trying as hard as he can, smiling, shaking hands, spending money, saying he's just like us, and he cannot get the Republican love. Actually, that sounds gay.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Since I have taken the Gail Collins pledge always to mention the Irish setter on top of the family car story when writing about Mitt, I must say that was odd. Did no one in the family object? Or did they object in horror but Mitt held dominion over them?

Mitt has an unstated Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy concerning his core definer--his religion. For despite all the normalizing cultural carpet-bombing--HBO's Big Love and Broadway's beloved Book of Mormon--people are still icked out by Mormonism. Wait, that sounds gay, too.

The modern Mormon Church elders do not whine about religious persecution. They just put their heads down and get to work on the project of Mormon capitalism, turbo-tithed and willing to invest in

Bain Capital or Prop Hate.

The much-aggrieved Catholic Church--persecuted as it is by Sinead, Madonna, Gaga, Nicki Minaj, contraceptive-wheel wielding women, and pedophilia lawsuits--could learn from the Mormons. Or hightail it back to the catacombs.

Perhaps the victimology attracts converts. Unlike Mitt Romney, who was born into Mormonism, Newt Gingrich chose Catholicism. While Mormon Mitt has had just one wife, Catholic Newt has had three wives in a kind of serial polygamy. Newt's motives for conversion were to woo Callista--the way to a woman's heart is through her church choir. As a self-forgiven sinner, a martyr to his political...