Gray's Dabbled In Gay-Baiting Before

The king of the political media establishment, Jon Ralston, has joined political consultant Gary Gray in ridiculing the notion that Gray was gay-baiting when he compared his State Senate candidate's being married with kids and grandkids to her opponent's being single, 42 and occasionally living with mom.

Except it turns out, Gray's done it before -- and was called out on it by gay activists at the time, too.

Four years ago, Gray ran the campaign of now-Treasurer Kate Marshall in a primary battle against fellow Democrat Geoffrey VanderPal, left. VanderPal is gay. Gray knew that. In the waning days of that campaign, Marshall sent out a mailer eerily similar to the one Gray sent for Kathy McClain last week in which, among other things, he compared the two candidates by noting that Marshall was in a stable, married relationship with children and VanderPal was single.

Nobody can dig up the precise wording, but again it struck many gays who read it as the same sort of code: Kate's a married hetero mom, VanderPal is not.

The best part: Gay activists called Gary Gray at the time and complained. They told him the code they read into that comparison and . . . he laughed at them! He was just pointing out that Marshall has a more stable life than VanderPal, that's all, he told those who spoke to him.

[Side note: I'm now hearing of a third instance of this. I've not confirmed it, but if I have three, that's a trend, right, Jon?]

Marshall, like McClain, is a full-throated ally of gay people. But just because you're an ally doesn't mean that you or your campaign won't sink to make a little subtle implication that might scrounge a few votes and otherwise (hopefully) go unnoticed. In the 2006 case, Marshall was already running away with the race, which she won by more than 40 points. So it wasn't even necessary, but Gray did it anyway.

When I confronted Gray about this language in his mailer for Grandmother McClain, he laughed at me, told me no gay people he knew took it that way -- even though his own close gay friend and Mount Charleston neighbor Bob Forbuss did -- and said that it was actually supposed to be code for the notion that opponent Mark Manendo is a sexual predator. That was nonsensical; that's not what being a 42-year-old unmarried Momma's boy has ever implied. Ralston bought it, though.

Now that we know Gray has used this marriage-and-kids idea before and has been called on it, what does it mean? Two things:

(a) He had already been told by gays that such language was code to them and criticism of lifestyle choices offended them, despite his claim that he'd never heard of anything so ridiculous.
(b) He didn't mean it to imply a history of illegal sexual harassment for VanderPal, so surely he also didn't mean it in that light for Manendo, either. It was a tactic he'd used before for the same purpose.

I spoke to VanderPal today. He now lives in Texas. He confirmed all this and added another wrinkle.

VanderPal was NOT single during the 2006 campaign. He was in a long-term relationship with his partner of at least three years. So Gray, in fact, punished VanderPal for not being married when, in fact, he couldn't be married because it was and still is not legal here. At the very least, he devalued VanderPal's same-sex relationship in a way quite unbecoming of a pro-gay-marriage Democrat.

As it happened, Manendo isn't single, either. He's had a girlfriend for more than four years. So what we conclude -- at best! -- is that Gray does not view as valid any relationship that is not sanctified by legal marriage and which has not produced children.

Guess who else haven't reproduced? Why, Gary Gray and his wife of 23 years, County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani. Does that, Gary, makes your wife less worthy of her office than a married mother who might run against her. Too personal? You started it.

The relevance of one's personal marital and familial status to the ability to serve in office well escapes me and is an especially weird argument coming from Democrats, who I always thought didn't wish to judge people's relationship choices or lack thereof. I could argue that being single and/or having no kids gives you more time to devote to public service and that Grandmother McClain might be distracted from her task of representing the district by all her matronly duties. I don't believe that, but it has more merit than the reverse.

This whole episode is proving very costly for McClain, but I've yet to see her or Gray apologize for the verbage. In not doing so, they're violating Ralston's Rule of Campaigning, which is that if you screw up, you don't keep digging yourself deeper in the hole.

Instead, check out what hits newstands tomorrow for 10,000+ GLBT readers in Vegas:


Here's a closer look at the good part:


That's pretty bad, especially since the majority of Vegas' gay bars -- where the Nightbeat has the bulk of its distribution -- are in Senate District 7. Commercial Center, where there are other bars and the Gay & Lesbian Community Center is located, is just a block outside of it.

On reflection, there's one more thing that's offensive about all this. Jon Ralston, in trying to protect his ability to decide for everyone else whether something is or isn't a real issue, decided to tell a long-oppressed minority group how they should feel about language they instinctively recognize from their history to be code. In defense of his turf, he decided it was absurd because he knows Gray is personally gay-friendly as is Grandmother McClain, and thus they get a pass from doing anything insensitive. Somehow the great pooh-bah of Vegas political journalism forgot just how ruthless politicians and their operatives can be; suddenly he thinks people in this realm have some code of scruples that wouldn't be crossed in the heat of a bitter campaign.

The matter of gay-baiting "never should have been raised," Ralston wrote in his email blast yesterday. That may show just how irrelevant and silly he views gay people; can you imagine him suggesting to the black or Jewish communities that they shouldn't feel a certain way about something that has offended them? It would never happen.

Put it this way: If Gray had asserted that a male candidate was "more stable" because he's married with kids and compared that unfavorably to an unmarried, motherless middle-aged female candidate, feminists would be rightfully outraged and Ralston would never tell them not to be. It would be obvious sexism. Gray's doing the reverse, suggesting that men should be married with kids or else they're flawed. That's sexism, too, and in these cases it carries the tinge of being heterosexist, too.

Ralston bought Gray's notion that the line was a precursor to a campaign against Manendo's alleged sexual harassment history. Jon didn't care that that made no sense, but now that Gray has a history of using this language for candidates who could be perceived to be gay, maybe he'll see it differently. I doubt it.

In the process, Ralston's missing a political sea change. This may be the first time the gay community in Nevada has been able to sway an election because of something that offended it. The pundit can try to protect his turf or he can acknowledge that McClain, via Gray, made a grave misstep that is helping show the first signs of muscle for a constituency that has heretofore been toothless. It's a coming-of-age moment, albeit one impossible to prove. You can be sure, however, that future candidates at least in this district will be much more careful and respectful.