The (crack)Pot

(Above: A still from 1990 FBI footage featuring then-mayor of D.C. Marion Barry smoking crack in a hotel room. The woman with him is not his wife.)

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page wins the prize for best headline of the week: “‘Crack Mayor’ Sniffs at Gay Marriage.” Although I object to the term “gay marriage” for the same reason I object to the phrase “lady doctor,” I applaud Mr. Page for shining some light on one of the most hypocritical acts I’ve seen since Idaho senator Larry Craig tried to play “Happy Feet” with a cop in a MSP airport men’s room.

Page points out that former mayor of Washington D.C. Marion Barry originally supported the measure, designed to honor same-sex marriages contracted outside Washington D.C. If the bill is approved, it will mean that D.C. residents will be able to marry in states that allow it and have their unions recognized when they return home. But after “consulting” with his constituents, religious leaders in his community, and The Almighty (i.e., he prayed), he decided to be the sole dissenting vote in the D.C. City Council, using “Gathering Storm” language: “All hell is going to break loose….We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this.” He claimed to be representing his constituents, who are 98 percent black, commenting that “we don’t have but a handful of openly gay residents.”

Well, then! That’s OK, then. The majority wants something, and a politician must support that, even if he knows it’s wrong–and I take Barry’s career as an advocate of civil rights and his initial support of the bill to be a clear sign that this is so. Not only did he cave to pressure from right-wing anti-gay interests (he said he decided to stand with ministers who “stand on the moral compass of God”), but he tried to pass it off as the will of the entire African-American population in his community.

Barry clearly knows what’s going on. He’s tuned in! It’s awesome! “I am a politician who’s moral,” he says to a group of D.C. religious leaders.

To reiterate what I wrote in a previous posting, “Sex in the City: D.C., That Is,” I’m not that anxious to have my 14th Amendment rights squashed or hear about morality from people who’ve been married four times, even if I were inclined to ignore the arrogance, the tax evasion, the prostitute thing, the crack pipe, the federal prison sentence…

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Barry.

Thanks to Rod McCullom and The Daily Voice.