Georgia GOP Chair Slammed on Gay Marriage

The chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party has drawn sharp rebuke around the nation for remarks she made to The Marietta Daily Journal this week about gay marriage.

East Cobb resident Sue Everhart was one of several people interviewed by the paper in a roundup story about the issue published Monday (subscription). She said that gay marriage could lead to fraud on the part of heterosexuals:

"Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you're gay, and y'all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits. I just see so much abuse in this it's unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

She also said that gay marriage is unnatural, claiming that "if it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship."

Jezebel, a pop culture-oriented website aimed at women, wrote of Everhart's free ride arguments:

"She didn't mention the fact that a pair of straight opposite-sex partners who are not attracted to each other could do the exact same thing, probably because everyone knows that straight men and women can't be friends for an extended period of time without sticking the one sexual equipment into the other sexual equipment."

The website for the British tabloid The Daily Mail also weighed in, and tried some digging of its own:

"MailOnline was unable to find evidence of widespread marital fraud in the nine states where same-sex marriage is currently legal. But one insurance analyst said it may take government investigators years to catch up with any fraud that has occurred."

The issue has dominated national news in the past week as two gay marriage cases were heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. One of the cases is a challenge to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996.

One of the chief co-sponsors of DOMA was former Congressman Bob Barr, a Marietta Republican who announced last week he was seeking a return to the U.S. House. He's also changed his mind on gay marriage, prompting a local gay publication to wonder if Barr is "too pro-gay for Georgia."

Regarding Everhart, and in a post on Tuesday entitled "The bigotry that dare not speak its name," AJC columnist Jay Bookman wrote:

"Rather than acknowledge to yourself that yes, you are indeed treating people as second-class citizens, you invent a reason that you find less threatening to your self-image."

In a roundup of Everhart-related coverage, The Atlantic Wire pointed out that plenty of Georgians are looking for a "free ride" outside the realm of gay marriage:

"You know who else commits fraud in the state of Georgia? People who take out mortgages. Last year, a report suggested that the state was the nation's sixth-worst for fraudulent home loans. Since mortgages are such an enticement for abuse, then, it's only fair that the state ban borrowing to buy a home."

Waiting in the weeds was television satirist Stephen Colbert, who devoted a segment of his "Colbert Report" program on the Comedy Central cable outlet on Tuesday to parse Everhart's statements:

"This is about straight men wanting to get free health care. If I know anything about straight guys, they'll jump at any chance for their peers to think they're gay."