Noted Homophobe, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), 88, Reportedly Running for Re-Election

Cool cartoon by St. Johns County's talented cartoonist Mike Konopacki.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is reportedly planning to run for re-election in 2022.

Last panel reminds me of the time in 1991 when I co-authored articles touching on security clearance law for American Bar Association Young Lawyers' Division magazine, Barrister (circulation 175,000).  

My co-author, my then-boss, then and now the Legal Director at the Government Accountability Project in Washington, D.C. demanded I tone down our article's critique of government anti-Gay discrimination on security clearances, to focus only on whistleblowers. I declined the invitation.   

After USDOL Chief Administrative Law Judge Nahum Litt helped in winning a major victory -- an ABA House of Delegates resolution on security clearance due process, adopted in Honolulu in August 1989 -- we helped Congressional Democratic staff for Congressmen Don Edwards and Gerry Sikorski with five days of historic House of Representatives legislative oversight hearings on security clearances, 1989-1990.  The first five witnesses were four whistleblowers and one Gay man, all ensnared the the web of shame of what I called "unaccountable national security clearance czars."  

My boss's only justification for wanting me to Bowdlerize our article was his opinion that "Grassley is a homophobe," but was helpful with whistleblowers, and not to be lightly offended. 

My boss yelled and screamed and pouted. 

We later parted ways.  

Lesson: Always stand up for principles. 

When our putative "liberal" allies in D.C. turn their back on LGBTQIA+ rights, they were wrong.  

Gay rights are human rights, as President Joe Biden told the United Nations on September 21, 2021.

And, Senator Charles Grassley is he still a bigot?  Are good people still making bad excuses for the windbag?

You tell me.