I'll admit it: At first I was extremely annoyed at the refusal of Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, to just go away. But now, the more Rove sticks around, the more interesting he becomes. On the outside, untethered to his prince, Rove could prove to be a walking, talking conundrum for he Republican compadres.
Take, for instance, yesterday's appearance at Choate, the über-prestigious Connecticut prep school. (The appearance itself was arranged when student protests knocked Rove off the podium on which he was slated to appear at next June's graduation.) There, according to Arielle Leven Becker of the Hartford Courant, Rove addressed rumors that his adoptive father was gay, and then went on to have a prolonged back-and-forth with a student over the legitimacy of gay marriage:
One student, citing published accounts, asked about the sexual orientation of Louis Rove, Rove's adoptive father, and its role in Rove's political decisions.
Rove said he did not know if his adoptive father, who died in 2004, was gay. Rove said Louis Rove loved his wife and children "and I miss him a lot."
In a prolonged exchange with another student, Marla Spivak, "Rove asked, what's the compelling reason to throw out 5,000 years of understanding the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman?"
In other words, if it was good enough for my [maybe gay] dad to live like a heterosexual, it's good enough for the rest of you maybe-gay people.
Hat-tip to the Triangle Foundation's Sean Kosofsky for bringing Becker's piece to my attention.
--Adele M. Stan
