ICYMI: Agema's anti-gay plan quietly defeated; GOP national embarrassment avoided

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was no doubt pleased
that the resolution was defeated with no fanfare at all.

A Republican National Committee panel on Wednesday quietly
rejected the resolution put forward by Michigan RNC representative Dave Agema,
which claimed school kids need to be warned about the physical dangers of
homosexuality, including a substantially shortened lifespan.

As the national GOP opened its 3-day conference in Cleveland, site of tonight’s Republican presidential debate, an RNC subcommittee quickly discarded the Agema plan to
advocate anti-gay sex-education in schools.

Agema’s resolution, which falls in line with his highly
criticized homophobic and bigoted remarks of the past, concluded that public
schools are teaching the “homosexual lifestyle” in sex education classes. The
trend, he said, reflects an American culture that portrays being gay as an
“attractive option for school-aged children.”

Agema

The disgraced RNC member believes that gays die at a
young age due to a promiscuous lifestyle that leads to sexually transmitted
diseases and HIV.
As The Washington Blade first reported, Agema cites a claim by the Journal of
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes that says being gay takes up to 21 years
off a person’s lifespan.

The former state representative, who has been censured by
the RNC for his far-right views, previously posted on Facebook claims that “homosexual
sexual encounters occur while drunk, high on drugs, or in an orgy setting,” and
that “50 percent of suicides can be attributed to homosexuals.”

Not surprisingly, Agema responded on Facebook to the criticism
of his resolution, saying: “Once again, political correctness is rearing its
ugly head.”

Over at the publication Pride Source, Todd Heywood dissected
the puritanism and hypocrisy of Agema’s rhetoric.

Heywood, who perhaps gives Agema too much credit, given
the GOP committeeman’s gay-bashing rhetoric of the past, points out that Agema’s
supposed concerns about HIV and sexually transmitted diseases are actually a self-inflicted
indictment.

Here’s a piece of Heywood’s report:

“What Agema doesn’t say is that the increased health
burden on the LGBT community is the direct result of political actions he has
long been associated with — anti-gay policies and abstinence only sex
education.

“… During his time in the Legislature, Agema proposed
eliminating the Healthy Michigan Fund. That fund is the only matching fund
mechanism for federal HIV prevention and care dollars. He wanted to transfer
the fund balance into airport maintenance.

“He is also a huge supporter of abstinence only sex
education … which has been shown over and over again not to work in reducing
unintended pregnancies or (STDs) in teenagers.”