Milwaukee Post
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/994757
8 • Milwaukee County Post • June 15, 2018 If one had any doubts about how identity politics has consumed the Democratic Party, consider the case of the fake gay who is likely to be the party's candidate for gov- ernor. While running for Congress in 2012, Kelda Roys tried to lie about her sexual ori- entation. Denying one's gayness has been a part of politics as long as there has been politics, but Roys, in a remarkable sign of current Democrat times, tried to deny her straightness. If you're a Madison Democrat it is now an asset to be gay and a hindrance to be straight. Being gay makes you part of a spe- cial interest group and Democrats exist only to serve and elect special interests. Fast backward to 2012 and Roys was run- ning for the Democrat nomination for the U.S. House seat Tammy Baldwin was giving up to run for the Senate. Roys was running against a fellow member of the state Assembly, Mark Pocan, in their ultra-liberal Madison area district. Pocan is gay. So is Baldwin. Roys is apparently a wannabe gay. At a candidate forum, Roys told the audi- ence she and her "partner" had to go to Iowa to get married because of Wisconsin's then-ban on gay marriage. The clear impli- cation was that Roys' "partner" was anoth- er woman and that they therefore could not at the time get married in Wisconsin. What Roys did not say was that her part- ner, Dan Reed, is in fact a man. She didn't have to go anywhere else to get married. But being a straight Madison Democrat is no asset and Roys, in word-maneuvering that Bill Clinton would admire, tried to cre- ate the impression she is a gay woman. Roys didn't want to be the straight man in this joke. Baldwin is gay and one of the few openly gay members of Congress and for Madison gays that's a big deal. So Pocan's gayness was a plus for him. Only in the identity-obsessed world of Democrat poli- tics would any of this matter but matter it did. Pocan and his supporters blasted Roys for trying to lie her way out of a closet she was never in. The Madison gay community harshly criticized Roys. That group was "all in" for Pocan and was furious that Roys was trying to appropriate a sexual identity that wasn't her own. Pocan won the election and Roys remained in the Assembly. No one knows that because being a Democrat in the Wisconsin Assembly right now is about as relevant as being a libertarian in Iran. Roys has positioned herself on the far left of the party which is a mean trick since the Wisconsin Democrats' "center" is some- where to the left of Karl Marx. Roys is now running in that free-for-all that is the Democratic primary for gover- nor. She'll probably win it. She's a Madison lefty in a party that is dominated by Madison lefties and a woman in a party in which identity is defining. She's also younger than most of the tired old goats that are running (Flynn, Evers, Gronik, Soglin, Methuselah, et al.). She cleaned up in the straw poll taken at the recent Democrat state convention. Roys doesn't have to pretend to be gay anymore as there somehow are no gays among the ten candidates running (so far as I know but there's still time for somebody to pull a Kelda Roys and fake it). The gay activists in Madison have apparently forgiv- en Roys and she has the backing of much of the Madison crowd. This whole absurd situation is precisely why the Democrats are marginalizing themselves. It's a big part of the reason Donald Trump won the presidency. Democrats are so focused on their pet groups — gays, women, trans, unions, Latinos, crooks — that they have ignored regular middle-class people who don't tick any of the identity boxes. A woman selling real estate in Wisconsin Rapids or an auto mechanic in Manitowoc can't relate to any element of the Democrat's identity-driven agenda. Listen to what the Democrats babble about: same-sex bathrooms, climate change, amnesty for illegal immigrants, gun ban- ning, streetcars, LGBTQ, cop-bashing, and abortion, abortion and abortion. None of this relates to the great mass of Americans who want a healthy economy, safe commu- nities, decent schools and judge people as individuals, not which group or letter of the alphabet they are represented by. In a way, Kelda Roys is the perfect Democrat candidate. Her last name sounds like her first name and her first name sounds like her last name. Her gender is impossible to decipher from her name and her sexual orientation is malleable enough to be manipulated by whatever campaign she is involved in. She went to NYU and UW Law and worked for the Innocence Project. Talk about ticking off all the boxes to get liberal street cred. And the ones she doesn't tick, she'll just make something up. * * * The obsession with identity over sub- stance is how the party of Lucey, Proxmire, Aspin, Nelson, Zablocki and Reuss is now the party of Gwen Moore, Tammy Baldwin, Chris Larson, Segway Boy and Kelda Roys. (Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show. His column appears weekly in the Milwaukee Post. Send your personal correspondences to Mark Belling at Clear Channel Communications, c/o WISN, 12100 MARK BELLING STANDING UP for MILWAUKEE No straight talk from candidate for governor OPINION Last week's question What do you think of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission annual report? Or, a story in the Post high- lights a Downtown Diggs condo tour. If you could live anywhere, where would you choose? (Choose one.) They're going to have quite a way to go with that police officer's death and with that Sterling Brown parking ticket. I think the new police chief, Morales, is going to have a hard time because he's going to have to get along with Mayor Tom Barrett, and he's not the easiest one to get along with. — Tommy Sukkert South Milwaukee *** If I were young and first beginning my life, I might choose to live in central Wisconsin in a rustic cabin on a wood- ed lot on the banks of the Wisconsin River. I fell in love with the river as a child on summer vacations. It saw me grow up. I learned to listen to its wis- dom and have never stopped loving it. I am no longer young and my roots have gone deep into the Town of Lake/Bay View soil. I may still love the river, but this aging little brick house on a double lot is my home. My neighbors have become my family — my gardens, my bits of Eden. It would be hard to think about leaving — even for the river. — Sandy Sue Szanderek Bay View This week's question What are your thoughts on the historic summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un? Or, what do you like or would you like to change about Summmerfest, which turns 51? Editor's note: When responding to the Question of the Week, please include your full name with spelling, phone number and city where you live. Phone numbers will not be published. Call 744-6370, Ext. 15 and leave a brief answer. Readers may also send an email with a brief answer to: dmuck@con- leynet.com. Question of the week Send your letters to: The Milwaukee Post, c/o Dan Muckelbauer, 3397 S. Howell Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53207, or by email to: dmuck@conleynet.com. We reserve the right to edit letters for style, length and clarity. Letters should be typewritten or printed and include full name, phone number and address. Please keep your letters to no more than 400 words. Letters policy Kelda Roys will say anything to identity-obsessed Democrats