On The Down-Low: Wild Rumor Mongering On The Internet

After a week of the Herman Cain Sex Comedy, folks on the Right might be forgiven for grinding their teeth with frustration over how the media treats GOP sex scandals differently from liberal sex scandals, even when the particular Republican in the cross hairs hasn't been accused of anything actionable. As a salve, may I recommend this bit of rumor mongering over at Hillbuzz?

During the 2008 election, I campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the Democrat primaries. Repeatedly, I heard over and over here in Chicago that Barack Obama is gay and that his marriage to Michelle is one of mutual convenience.  In the black community, this is called “being on the down-low”, where a closeted gay male weds an often-times gruff and demanding woman (typically without other male suitors of her own) to take public scrutiny off them both and afford the pair a successful life they’d never achieve separately.
There are, apparently, a lot of such relationships forged at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago — where Barack Obama’s pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, oversaw the coupling of down-low gay black men with sour and caustic black women. 

This apparently happens not just in Chicago at Trinity United, but in black communities all over the country.  Author Terry McMillen and talking-head Star Jones married down-low gay men to benefit their careers and help their public image too. 

Black women who marry gay black men are lavished with all the social perks these marriages of convenience afford them, while the men get to go off together on “camping trips”, to “basketball games out of town”, or to other “social events” where they can engage in gay activity with one another secure in the knowledge that no one in the Reverend Wright’s “down-low club” would rat the other fellas out.  You need to understand how much homosexuality is despised in the black community to appreciate both the need for gay black men to stay “down-low” and the willingness of some black women to become “beards” for these men when they think they can benefit from the arrangement in some way themselves (usually because these are difficult-to-deal-with women who were unable to find anyone willing to marry them otherwise). 

Oprah Winfrey and her longtime “boyfriend” Stedman Graham were for many years also members of Trinity United Church of Christ, and you can read whatever you may like into that. 

In Chicago’s Boystown gay community, older guys who frequented the little dive bars that have been around forever told tales back in the 2008 primaries about Barack Obama slipping out whenever he was in Chicago for romps at the local bathhouse “Man’s Country”. The details given in these accounts of his activities were substantial.  Apparently, he went most often to this Andersonville neighborhood bathhouse on Wednesdays, and while there he was rumored to seek oral sex from older white men.  According to the gossip, Barack Obama would never reciprocate in these encounters, but enjoyed being pleasured by older white guys.  Evidently, he is not a giver and is something of a selfish bathhouse regular when not being the current President of the United States.

Gotta love the idea of Rev. Wright operating "men's club" at the Trinity Church. My gay-dar goes into the red every time I hear his high, piping voice. 


There's some question whether Hillbuzz is kidding or not, but there's a serious point here. While conservatives like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain are subject to a thorough "vetting," there has been little curiosity about Obama's past. No one has ever found an ex-girlfriend, a college roommate, etc. willing to go on the record about Obama's life pre-fame. Doesn't mean the guy is gay, but it sure is odd that there is nothing out there beyond the blandest of blandishments. If anything, it's a perfect example of leftist omerta.