Woody Jenkins espouses Republican party virtues of bigotry

Gay people, black people and women - these are but a few classes of individuals with whom Republican congressional candidate Woody Jenkins has a poor track record when it comes to equal rights and respect. But given that Jenkins aligns himself with the most right-wing fringe group of the Republican Party, this should come as no surprise to any of us. It is no secret part of the Republican Party mantra in winning votes has been to divide people along racial and gender lines as well as use hatred of gay people in an attempt to curry favor with certain segments of the population that is turned on by these divisions. Jenkins fits this mold perfectly. First, the easiest of the distinctions - gay people. Ever since the cataclysmic event of gays marrying in Massachusetts came to the forefront of political discourse in 2004, the Republican Party seized upon this issue, claiming gay marriage - rather than divorce - is the biggest threat to the family today. In response, the most conservative wing of the Republican Party pushed to amend the U.S. Constitution to provide that marriage would only be between one man and one woman - which would prevent any state from defining it otherwise. Further, Republicans even sought to do away with civil unions that provide equal rights for gay Americans. After all, that pesky 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides equal protection to all Americans, only applies to those of the heterosexual persuasion. Jenkins has endorsed this extremist view, claiming on his Web site that "Woody believes that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Woody also supports the passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment and opposes civil unions." Jenkins earns one offensive point for this view in my tally. But gay people are just the first part of the equation. Black people are the second piece of Jenkins's trinity of bigotry. During the Republican congressional primary, Jenkins' opponent, Paul Sawyer, raised an issue that has been well known for more than a decade - Jenkins' connection to the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke. During Jenkins' race against Sen. Mary Landrieu, the Federal Election Commission fined the Jenkins campaign for "failing to reveal that the mailing list that he purchased amid his 1996 U.S. Senatorial campaign originated in the hands of David Duke," according to Louisiana Weekly. The Jenkins campaign paid $82,000 to a company that served as a conduit to obtain the list of supporters Duke counted on during his 1991 gubernatorial election. Knowing which people are most likely to vote for Duke is helpful for a Republican. Duke, whose career has been spent championing the cause of segregation of the races and white supremacy, certainly had a following in Louisiana at the time. And knowing the identity of the supporters served as an important cornerstone to Jenkins get-out-the-vote effort during his 1996 campaign. For the rest of us, however, we have long attempted to disassociate our state and politics from Duke. One final group which Jenkins maligns in speeches and his retrograde policies is women. During a 1995 speech to the Council for National Policy, Jenkins claimed "the overwhelming majority of our crime, illegitimacy, drug abuse and dependency occurs in homes where the man is no longer physically present." Knowing that only a man could solve this problem, he proclaimed "perhaps our greatest single need today is for men." Jenkins also spoke about his childhood to illustrate why women should stay home instead of work. "In 1960, when I was 13 [years old], few women with children were in the work force," Jenkins said. "Most mothers were there for the boys when they came home from school. Today the vast majority of women with children are in the work force." Perhaps all these women who think they have a place outside of the home should revert back to the 1800s when women were expected to be in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, taking care of the children while the man of the house brought home the bacon. Because, as Jenkins put it, "Left behind was the boy. He didn't have a man to tell him all day what to think about God, what to think about the country and its leaders." Instead, "he was left with the mother who had already taught him the womanly things she had to teach him." And if there is one thing we don't want for our boys - it's for the mothers to teach them. When we vote May 3 for our congressional representative we have a choice. We can cast our vote for a man whose views are so far out of the mainstream they make President Bush look like a liberal. Or we can vote for a person with reasoned views who does not believe we are still living in the 19th Century. And since it's 2008, I know who I will not be voting for.

---- Contact Donald Hodge Jr. at dhodge@lsureveille.com