Andrew Sullivan links this morning to a USA Today item that highlights what it calls the "GOP's gay identity crisis". It features a picture of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swearing in Mark Dybul as the country's new global AIDS coordinator. Between Mark, an openly gay man, and Rice are First Lady Laura Bush and Mark's partner, Jason Claire. And lest anyone be mislead into assuming that Jason and Mark are simply business or law partners, Rice referred to Jason's mother, also at the ceremony, as Mark's "mother-in-law". The article goes on to point out the paradox between the ease in which official Republican Washington deals with gays and lesbians and the face that's put on for its evangelical Christian base outside the beltway.

There have been an increasing number of stories like this one recently as a spinoff to the Foley scandal. While the result may yet be a purging of gays and lesbians in the GOP's ranks, I'm heartened by the fact that the news is getting out that the party speaketh with forked tongue to its largest block of supporters.