For the past few days, the blogsphere has been lit up like those old telephone switchboards with the rumor that outgoing Republican heavy weight Trent Lott is resigning from his number-two post in the Senate because of an upcoming Hustler Magazine exposé on the legislator’s romps with male escort Benjamin Nicholas.

The rumor originated on a site called BigHeadDC, which quotes Hustler Magazine as saying that “Senator Lott has been the target of an ongoing Hustler investigation for some time now, due to confidential information that we have received.” Hustler is mum on whether that information concerns a little walk on the wild side.

Nicholas, meanwhile, is categorically denying everything. According to his November 27 blog entry: “There are falsely pieced-together quotes (on BigHeadDC) that serve no purpose other than to sensationalize a completely fabricated scoop. I will continue to offer a great sense of confidentiality to the people I see. I have not, nor have I ever seen or had contact with Senator Trent Lott. It's as simple as that. It never happened.”

Doth the lady protest too much?

Or is he upholding his version of a code of honor among male escorts? In 2006, he blasted escort Mike Jones for dropping the gay dime on televangelist Ted Haggard: “The most important rule you can follow when taking people’s money in exchange for sex is that--no matter what--their lives stay their own and whatever passes between the two of you remains private. Period.”

What Nicholas doesn’t understand is that it’s different when it comes to conservative Republicans, whether of the elected official or the televangelist kind. These guys gain powerful positions and big bucks denouncing guys like Nicholas and all of us who enjoy sex in an unconventional manner, whether it be per os or anum or with the whip and belt.

Republicans such as Trent Lott help keep the world’s oldest profession illegal, endangering the lives of
many who practice it.

They also promote anti-queer bigotry. Lott has compared queers to kleptomaniacs, thieves, liars and drug addicts. He once said that homosexuality is a violation of the “standard of nature.” Once we abandon that, he explained, “what is to forbid us from resorting to any violation of nature that we may please? Why should we not return to slavery, if we find it convenient? Or the practices of incest or adultery or cannibalism?”

Lott’s racism is just as well known. Not only from comments he made at segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond’s birthday party in 2002, but also from his support of organizations such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls the “white collar Ku Klux Klan.”

No matter what the truth is concerning Lott and Nicholas, the reality is that queer America has a lot to be thankful for: A racist, antigay bigot is leaving Congress.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical Italian queer atheist with a website: www.avicollimecca.com