This secret recording of San Antonio city councilwoman Elisa Chan and her staff talking about how icky gayness is a pure delight, in that “wow, wingnuts are even weirder when they talk to each other!” kind of way. As Wonkette reports — they are knocking it out of the park on weird gay things today — the audio was recorded by a former staffer named James Stevens and broke at MySanAntonio.com, and reveals Chan’s strange homophobia in the course of a discussion about San Antonio’s proposed nondiscrimination ordinance:
In the course of the conversation, Chan expressed her unvarnished views on homosexuality, which range from befuddled to intolerant.
She revealed that she believes being gay is a choice and that gay people should not be allowed to adopt children, and she voiced revulsion toward the LGBT community.
Unbeknown to the councilwoman, an aide, James Stevens, was secretly recording the meeting on his iPhone. (He’s now a former aide; Stevens, 28, quit this week.)
In the recording, which Stevens gave to me, the councilwoman and her aides strategize how to oppose the ordinance publicly without revealing her feelings.
“My decision to record in the first place was that, during the staff meetings, we weren’t really discussing the ordinance itself,” Stevens told me. “We were really just talking about ways to appeal to the (voting) base and to get them fired up as opposed to analyzing the ordinance.”
Chan “is only focused on her political future,” he continued. “She’s not focused on the policy itself and how it’s going to really affect the city. We spent 80 percent of that meeting talking about how disgusting homosexuality is.”
Chan doesn’t want to appear to be as bitter of a homophobe as she is, so the staff tries to figure out how to communicate her message without her true feelings coming out:
“This is my philosophy, guys,” she says. “Whatever you want to do in your bedroom is none of my business, but do not impose your view on other people, especially becoming policy … because personally, I think it’s just disgusting just to even think about. All the definitions. …
“But I don’t want to go against, necessarily … I don’t want to beat up anybody,” she continues. “Maybe what we can do, can we maybe throw some questionable confusions like, OK, this ‘transgender,’ because the definition is so broad… Maybe I say I was not educated on what transgender is about.”
Later, Chan slips back into candor.
“By the way, this is politically incorrect,” she tells her aides. “I don’t think homosexual people should do adoption. They should be banned by adoption. You’re going to confuse those kids. They should be banned.
“If you wanted to choose that lifestyle, we don’t want to discriminate you, but you shouldn’t affect the young people,” she continues. “How terrible. … They’re going to be confused. You see two men go into a bedroom. You see two women kissing. Is that not confusing? It’s confusing.
“It is actually, what you call, suggestive, for the kids to be corrupt, which is against nature. I’m telling you, anything that is against nature is not right.”
Unreal. A highlight of the video comes in the first minute when Jeff Bazan, Chan’s former chief of policy, explains that “the road we’re going … incest and being able to marry animals, that’s all going to happen,” to which somebody named Jackie replies, “no it isn’t, Church Boy.” Wow! Jackie actually tries to be a voice of reason, but no one is having it. Wingnut politics in action!
Other highlights of the video:
1. The obligatory mention of NAMBLA, which is, uh, not part of the gay rights movement anywhere except in the dark recesses of the wingnut mind.
2. The staff trying to figure out what “pansexual” means. A theory is presented that maybe it’s people who want to have sex with nature.
3. Some younger voices of reason try to explain that there are biological and evolutionary reasons that people are gay. Chan and the other wingnuts are not having it.
4. Younger voices explaining that the fact that people can often identify gay people just by looking at their faces suggests that there is a major biological component. Chan explains that that is because gays take hormone shots. Told you this recording is great. It’s like a Discovery Channel show about wingnuts!
5. Somehow Chan states that, despite all this, she doesn’t oppose gay marriage.
6. But it’s disgusting to be gay, says Chan.
And so on and so forth. Enjoy these fifteen minutes:
