An Updated Southern Strategy in the City of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia, you're... something.

17 years ago, Tom Hanks played the role of a real-life gay man (Geoffrey Bowers) attempting to survive AIDS and bitter anti-gay bigotry in 1987.

In 2010, incumbent Democrat Rep. Babette Josephs is cynically attempting to use homosexuality in her bid to stay in office... in a rather unusual way:

Veteran Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) last Thursday accused her primary opponent, Gregg Kravitz, of pretending to be bisexual in order to pander to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters, a powerful bloc in the district.

"I outed him as a straight person," Josephs said during a fund-raiser at the Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant, as some in the audience gasped or laughed, "and now he goes around telling people, quote, 'I swing both ways.' That's quite a respectful way to talk about sexuality. This guy's a gem."

Josephs' attempt to brand her opponent as not gay enough is just a slightly more palatable form of bigotry than that that drives supremacist groups around the world. Certainly, nothing in Joseph's remarks can be miscast as a call to violence, but her message is clear, he isn't one of us, and he can't be trusted.

So much for tolerance.

(H/T Allah)