Trying way too hard (and I'll leave my comment at that)? From the New York Daily News, about the moderate-liberal Democrat: "Newark Mayor Cory Booker admitted that he 'hated gays' as a young man in a 1992 opinion piece republished by The Stanford Daily, in which he spoke frankly about his evolution on homosexuality. The column was published as Booker was pursuing a master’s degree in sociology at Stanford and reprinted by the newspaper on Wednesday. The high-profile mayor recently said he is planning to run for New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s seat in 2014."
More: "'I was writing about my teenage struggle for integrity,' Booker explained Thursday on Twitter. In the column, Booker wrote that he was 'disgusted by gays' as a teenager, even as he put on a show of acceptance. 'The thought of two men kissing each other was about as appealing as a frontal lobotomy,' he said. 'Allow me to be more direct, escaping the euphemisms of my past – I hated gays,' he continued. 'The disgust and latent hostility I felt toward gays were subcategories of hatred, plain and simple.'"
The article continues about Mayor Booker's changing views: "Booker said he had a change of heart as a freshman after a gay counselor shared his story about enduring prejudice and violence because of his homosexuality. 'It was chilling to find that so much of the testimony he shared with me was almost identical to stories my grandparents told me about growing up Black,' Booker wrote. 'Well, it didn’t take me long to realize that the root of my hatred did not lie with gays but with myself.'"
Bookeristas Respond
How did I know that Sandra Rose was gonna respond to this news? After showcasing a research study about homophobia and repressed same-sex feelings, the gay conservative blogger in Atlanta writes: "But if Mr. Booker is not gay, what is he? How could Booker be a straight man with no apparent history of dating women? Maybe he hates women just as passionately as he once hated the gays?"
Chidike Okeem, a conservatve Republican in California, opines: "I'll never forgive Obama for starting this trend among black people. Now everyone is sucking up to the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered] community and trying to jump on the LGBT bandwagon in order to be fashionable. Thanks, but I'll stick with my Bible — no matter how 'out of fashion' it is. *SMDH*"
Cory Booker: "I Used To Be Disgusted By Gays"
