Curse of the Pink Purger

It's things like this L.A. Times article on social conservatives clamoring for a "pink purge" of gay Republican staffers that make me wary of political outings that folk like John Aravosis seem so keen on, quite apart from my general feeling that people's private lives shouldn't be dragged into the public eye just to score political points.

Sure, it might be that, in the very short term, you can get some mileage out of the bigotry you expose by provoking the social cons into this sort of reaction. But look beyond the midterms and you've got a much less appealing setup: A party with an extremist wing that will be watching closely, itching to go Taliban on any new legislative aide with a hint of a lisp, and a moderate wing unlikely to be ready to die on this particular hill once the issue's out of the limelight. In other words, a dynamic with the potential to create a much less tolerant, more uniformly homophobic GOP presence on the Hill. You might bet that in the still-longer term, this will be an albatross around their necks, but it sure seems like a dangerous game to play.

(Hat tip: Via Mother Jones; Cross-posted @ NftL.)