Carswell's Ghost

Harrold Carswell is sworn in as U.S. Attorney, 1953.
(Florida Photographic Collection)
Charlie Crist's "I'm not gay" tour is getting a bit tiresome. Methinks he doth protest too much.

The truth is that folks have been whispering about his sexuality for years. He's always seen in the company of handsome young men, purportedly colleagues. This was J. Edgar Hoover's modus operandi, and he carried on a lifelong love affair with Clyde Tolson, his assistant director. (A more pressing image problem for Crist is that strange orange color of his skin, a condition that has prompted editors in at least one Florida newsroom to sing "Ban de Soliel" when his name appears in news copy.)

The truth is that Florida needs a gay governor. If only Crist were gay (or at least openly so), the civil rights movement would benefit tremendously. But advancing civil rights isn't in the Republican playbook right now, and the compulsion to stay in the closet would be tremendous.

The conquistador is reminded of Harrold Carswell, the Florida judge who was Borked before Borking entered the lexicon. After President Nixon appointed Carswell to the Supreme Court in 1970, Sen. Ted Kennedy investigated his actions as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida in the mid-1950s. Because of Sen. Kennedy's investigation, we now know that the Eisenhower Administration was a participant in the conspiracy to thwart the Tallahassee bus boycott. Nevertheless, Nixon aide Patrick Buchanan wrote the outraged jeremiad against the Senate's "discrimination" against the South.

Why does the conquistador bring up this long-forgotten confirmation battle now? No, it's not because the Senate Judiciary Committee stands to erupt into a full-scale bloodbath when Bush tries to pack the Supreme Court with conservative ideologues (although that will be fun to watch). No, there's something more pressing to our current subject.

In retirement, Carswell was arrested for a homosexual advance that was made in a Tallahassee bathroom.

Why must gays be forced into the dark corners of our society? We know that they are there, yet the shame inflicted upon their love life renders them silent witnesses to hidden motivations and outrageously unfortunate double lives. Hoover and Carswell reacted to their own internal dilemmas by relentlessly persecuting others.

Crist is, of course, a different sort of man. He would be Florida's first openly metrosexual governor, and that would be an accomplishment in itself. (Although Gallagher strikes the conquistador as a lady-killer metrosexual.) Interestingly enough, in the most recent episode of Crist's denial, the radio personality who hosted the heterosexual pep rally (which had Crist announcing, "I love women. I mean, they're wonderful") took the rhetoric a little too far.

"I've seen you with some great-looking women,'' said radio jock Dave McKay. "I've heard some women even complain that you're a womanizer.''

Crist was quick with a response: "I wouldn't say I'm a womanizer. That's probably going too far.''