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Notes -
A (potentially former?) staffer for allegedly Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) is making news for filming gay sex in the Senate hearing room. He also, allegedly, yelled "Free Palestine" at Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio).
I include the last sentence only to clarify the full context for a statement the staffer posted on his LinkedIn about the matter:
I'm struggling with his statement because it seems like the "filmed sex tape at work in the Senate hearing room on Amy Koobuchar's desk" is more of the issue here than the staffer's sexuality itself, but the language used insinuates that he is using his sexuality as a defense for an act that straight people also probably could not have "gotten away" with.
The utter lack of understanding of consequences is also throwing me a little bit. Culture war discussions about sexuality dip into accusations of degeneracy and pleasure-seeking not associated with, necessarily, love that this video emulates. This video will of course be used to further those accusations onto "all gays" instead of the particularly privileged ones who work in the Senate.
The statement isn't about the staffer not understanding why he's getting criticized. This is a classic case of a person in the midst of a scandal putting up the bat signal for their in-group, screaming that the out-group is attacking them just for being a member of the in-group. (See: Zoe Quinn in GamerGate). People do it all the time because it works.
Yeah. I mean, going by the clip (thanks for making me watch that) the person getting the doing turned his head to the side, and the news site showing it blanked out his face, but that does mean the person being so generous with their love is identifiable. So if it is genuinely this guy, he has no defense.
But in order to have any kind of shred of "it wasn't me", he has to scrabble around for something, and "it's because I'm gay" is the only scrap he's got. "Okay so maybe I did something dumb, but the only reason you are making a big deal out of it is BECAUSE I'M GAY THIS IS HOMOPHOBIA THIS IS RIGHT-WING PROPAGANDA". Even NBC News is going with the "right-wing outlets", as if it makes a straw's worth of difference where the clip is being shown other than to stoke up outrage over "those darn fascists trying to smear our guys with... stuff they really did..."
There's a reason that the term "malinformation" has been increasingly added alongside "misinformation" and "disinformation."
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