Cory Booker: “I hated gays”

[DonViejo]

Source: Salon


Booker used to be homophobic. Now he's not. What his evolution teaches us about change -- and acceptance

BY KATIE MCDONOUGH

Everyone loves Cory Booker. He saves people from fires. He opens his home to Sandy evacuees. He tweets about Hot Pockets. And now he is coming clean about his own homophobia during college — and how he struggled to overcome it. This guy!

The Stanford Daily, along with BuzzFeed, unearthed a 1992 Op-Ed in which Booker wrote candidly about his early homophobia and subsequent “tolerance phase,” a period during which he renounced his bias, but still felt personally disgusted by gay people:

I stopped telling my gay jokes. Fags, flamers and dykes became homosexuals and people of differing sexual orientation and, of course, I had my gay friend. But I was disgusted by gays. The thought of two men kissing each other was about as appealing as a frontal lobotomy.

The young Booker doesn’t pull any punches, either: “Allow me to be more direct, escaping the euphemisms of my past — I hated gays,” he wrote. “The disgust and latent hostility I felt toward gays were subcategories of hatred, plain and simple.”

But all of that changed after talking with a gay counselor during his freshman year:

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/01/10/cory_booker_i_hated_gays/

[Voice for Peace]

1. thank you!

A valuable article.
People do evolve.
Thoughtful people, self-examining people, evolve in their
understandings, preferences, points of view.

[cheapdate]

2. People change, sometimes for the better.

[bitchkitty]

18. Like George Wallace. n/t

[craigmatic]

3. It's always easy to hate those who are different from you.

I grew up in a deep red state area and as little kids we used gay slurs and made fun of their life styles but when you mature you attitude changes. The sad thing is that some people never reach that point.

[RKP5637]

5. Many adults are basically children. n/t

[Shankapotomus]

4. Weird

As a straight male, I never had an "I hate gays" phase, even as an uniformed early twenty-something republican by familial default, and frankly I don't understand people who do or did. Though it's good to see Booker is channeling that energy toward better causes now.

[msanthrope]

10. That kind of prejudice is often carefully taught from childhood--some parents think it is

a "value" worth instilling. It's disgusting, but there you have it.

[LiberalFighter]

13. I never did either and I'm in my 50s.

I never felt threatened by it. My focus was more on the other gender. In recent years I reasoned why should I be anti-gay when that means they would not be in the pool seeking the opposite gender.

[qanda]

6. This story needs to be told, especially in the Black community

Where homophobia is very prevalent. Shamefully, I know all too well what he is talking about. Thankfully people are able to and do change.

[Tutonic]

7. Rolling on the floor! This guy is ambitious indeed. Corey Booker desires to ascent to a senate

seat now held by Bob Melendez. However, Corey has a slight problem in New Jersey and elsewhere in that his sexuality is often questioned. Corey is fearful to run with this questioned sexuality. I'm not inferring that he is or is not gay. However, I am inferring that he is creating a narrative about how he is big strapping straight as a solid line heterosexual male that will then get repeated on MSNBC, FAUX and elsewhere. I'm disappointed that he has taken this step at this time. Too ambitious and self centered.

[Captain Stern]

9. He wrote that Op-Ed twenty years ago. (nt)

nt

[Occulus]

19. My parents gave me the boot out of home and school for being gay twenty years ago.

I still don't trust my mom enough to ask her for money when I can't make rent (right now, the first time ever).

Why in the blue fuck should I trust THIS guy?

Apology NOT accepted. As far as I'm concerned, he can live with the consequences of his actions and Obama is still just as much at fault for choosing him in the first place.

[snooper2]

14. were you rolling on the floor 20 years ago

LOL

[DonViejo]

17. He's going after Sen Lautenberg's seat nt

[lunatica]

8. Well duh! Anyone who actually knows gay people personally has no problem

realizing that they're normal human beings.

All my life I've known gay people who were openly and proudly gay. I'm 64 years old. There was never a time I was stupid about it.

But I guess Booker is to be commended for finally feeling what every decent human being feels.

I think maybe he's just putting that out there so it doesn't trip him up when he runs for President. Which is ironic isn't it. Now politicians have to love teh gay in order to get elected. Times do change don't they.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. It's an op-ed he wrote 21 years ago when he was at university, age 22

I think he put it out there because it was something interesting to say in his column in the Stanford Daily. Maybe he was that calculating as a student, to foresee his political career 20 years later; but I'd have put it down more to wanting to look good at the time, and have material for his column. Or he actually thought it was a message that needed to be said, in the early 90s.

[lunatica]

12. My bad, but I do feel that he inadvertently showed his true colors in 2012

When he was supposed to be out there helping President Obama as a surrogate. I wanted to like him simply because Rachel likes him and considers him a friend, or so she says. But sometimes people do something that is so telling that you can't just set it aside. Christy pretty much did the same thing in his speech at the Republican Convention. They step over the believability line and you get a peak into their true motivations. I've learned the hard way to pay attention to those slip-ups.

[forestpath]

15. Bingo. And when Rachel turned half of a show over to him because of it -

and dissed liberals in the process - I lost a little respect for her that day.

[jinx1]

16. This is why it is so hard to come out

This ideology of hate towards others lifestyle and growing up with the family and community berating homosexuality is very damaging to young people. To instill hate for any reason is bad and the purpose must be examined. All too often the one with the most fervent voice against homosexuality is someone hiding their own feelings and they are full of fear. Often the result is suicide. For him to expose this in an op ed 21 years ago or today will hopefully help both other homophobic individuals and those being oppressed. KUDOS