One of the six Republicans challenging Lindsey Graham has labeled the U.S. Senator “ambiguously gay.” Dave Feliciano is a police officer who served in Iraq but quit his job on a SWAT team to run against Graham. Yesterday he told an audience assembled to hear four of the GOP candidates speak, “It’s about time that South Carolina [says] hey, We’re tired of the ambiguously gay senator from South Carolina. We’re ready for a new leader to merge the Republican Party. We’re done with this.”
Graham is a 58-year old Republican, a South Carolina native who first served in the state House in 1993, then as a U.S. Congressman in 1995 before taking the U.S. Senate seat of the iconic segregationist, Strom Thurmond, in 2003. He served in the United States Air Force from 1982-1988, and ever since has served as an Colonel in the Reserves.
On his campaign website, Feliciano goes to great lengths — but fails — to appear he is not anti-gay.
In his campaign statement on “Homosexual Relationships and the State’s Role,” he writes, “as you’ve learned I speak my mind and don’t really care who I offend.”
“My opinion is that if your state values gay sex like California or Massachusetts then they have the right to enact laws that promote it,” Feliciano proclaims. “However, I do not believe South Carolina is a state that values gay sex and I will always fight for the right of South Carolinians to have their opinions heard.”
Feliciano claims that “to some, not all, homosexuality is not a choice. There are some who were born legitimately desiring the same sex. Then there are others who are recruited into that lifestyle. (My gay friends know exactly what I am talking about……).”
But Feliciano also claims that he hasn’t seen “any discrimination towards gay couples,” although the gays he knows “are not the flamboyant shove-it-in-your face type of people.” He believes he has “seen a significant amount of tolerance towards gays from many who call themselves Christian.”
Feliciano concludes, “the only difference between gays and myself is a sexual act.”
What is done in the privacy of one’s own house is none of my business. That being said, why would you have a parade declaring to the whole world the type of sex you have in your bedroom. It seems a little disingenuous. I am raising two kids and they will not be exposed to sex until it is age appropriate. In my opinion the whole thing ought to be shut down. Straight people do not celebrate the sex they have in the streets because sex is meant to be a private act. There are other outlets to discuss the sex lives of couples. Forcing people to love and accept you because of a sexual act you commit seems a bit strange. People judge by a person’s merit, not on what goes on in their bedroom.
As a follower of Jesus Christ and his teachings I recognize that the institution of marriage is a Christian institution. The majority of Christian religions around the world prohibit gay sex and consider it a sin. Therefore to have a gay marriage would be offensive to Christians. It is also not very respectful or tolerant of their religion. The gay couples I know already have all the rights afforded to them of marriage without the actual term of marriage being applied. They understand that they are doing something different then the Christian version of marriage and as a result they don’t really expect or want to have a Christian label of their relationship given to them.
Â