The Power Of Ignorance

Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Donald Trump's running mate, fomented homophobia as the president of the conservative Indiana Policy Review.

Writing in the group's magazine of the same name, Pence lamented that the 1996 Republican National Convention had become “an endless line of pro-choice women, AIDS activists and proponents of Affirmative Action.”

“Like it or not,” Pence wrote, “traditional Pro-Family conservatives make up the bedrock of modern Republican electoral success.”

During his time as president of the Indiana Policy Review, the journal published several articles in which it railed against gay rights.

In 1993, it criticized The Wall Street Journal for taking part in a job fair for gay journalists and objected to gay men and women serving in the military.

“As we underhand the nature of both the political and scientific debate, the demand is that gaydom be elevated from a pathological condition or mere sexual preference to the status of one of several natural human divergences like hair or skin color,” the journal wrote in a piece titled The Pink Newsroom.

“The difference and the problem, as Gen. Colin Powell has pointed out, is that hair color or skin color does not determine behavior, while sex is one of its most powerful determinants.”

The writer goes on to suggest that the gay editor will “allow his sexually motivated behavior to play a part in news or editorial judgment” when it comes to the “special interest of organized homosexuals.”

In Military Necessity and Homosexuality, R.D. Ray wrote that “homosexuals are not as a group able bodied. They are known to carry extremely high rates of disease brought on because of the nature of their sexual practices and the promiscuity which is a hallmark of their lifestyle.”