When a bear hug is more than a bear hug

In 1998, novelist Toni Morrison called President Bill Clinton "the first black president," supposedly based on the similarity of his background to that of many blacks in America. Apt or not, it was popularly accepted as cute and clever, and the moniker stuck.

The May 21, 2012, issue of Newsweek magazine introduced President Barack Obama as America's "first gay president" based on his administration's support for gay "marriage." The cover feature, written by homosexual writer Andrew Sullivan, touted Obama's compassion and support for this minority. This was also picked up on as somewhat cute and clever; whether or not – and how – it sticks to Obama remains to be seen.

Accusations of homosexual dalliances against Obama presented difficulty, though not the biggest that arose during his 2008 presidential run. While his primary accuser, Larry Sinclair, did not wind up appearing terribly credible at the time (due in no small measure to the establishment press' affinity for the candidate), his lurid depictions of the two men sharing cocaine and oral sex in the back of a limousine were enough to give pause. These incidents were also alleged by Sinclair to have taken place in 1999 when Obama was an Illinois legislator, rather than during his bohemian youth.

The Sinclair allegations were not the only ones of this variety that appeared problematic to observers back in 2008. The 2007 murders of two homosexual men who attended Obama's former church (Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of Rev. Jeremiah Wright fame) with whom Obama was acquainted could have torpedoed any other candidate in light of the existing charges. At least, that's what I argued at the time.

Larry Sinclair subsequently revealed that his 2007 "negotiations" toward persuading Obama to come clean about his drug use (Sinclair has said that revealing his homosexuality wasn't the issue) had been brokered by Donald Young, the Trinity United choir director who was murdered in late 2007. This lends credence to the supposition of Sinclair and others that Young had been Obama's lover and might have been murdered to shield Obama from scandal.

Since 2008, telltale suggestions that Sinclair might not have been too off the mark have come to the fore, and circumstantial evidence of Obama being a practicing homosexual has continued to plague the president. Just yesterday, WND's Jerome Corsi released a bombshell, referencing claims by Hillbuzz.org blogger Kevin Dujan that Obama is "full-on gay," and that he hid his sexual orientation in order to become president. Dujan (who is homosexual) maintains that until 2004, Obama had a membership in Man's Country, a gay bath house in Chicago, and that Obama was a member of a clique within Trinity United Church called the "Down Low Club." Said to have been mentored by Rev. Wright, the group was a loose collection of professional, gay black men who maintained "straight" facades for the sake of their careers.

Fast-forward to the campaign trail in 2012 – this week, in fact, when a video of Obama receiving a bear hug from Scott Van Duzer went viral online. Van Duzer is the owner of Big Apple Pizza in Fort Pierce, Fla., who had occasion to schmooze with the president during a supposedly unscheduled campaign trail stop. Several things about the incident gave rise to the suspicions of journalists on the right and left as to whether the event was staged – but there were aspects of this visit that raise other suspicions.

During the Corsi-Dujan interview, Dujan took the time to explain how men familiar with the gay subculture behave, and how knowledge of this is used by homosexual men to recognize closeted ones. This was quite interesting and more than a little enlightening.

In my opinion, the pizza restaurant stop was definitely not unscheduled. Not only did Van Duzer visit the White House in June during the course of charity work in June, but he didn't look surprised to see the president when he arrived. Although it was clear from the video that the two men had not just met, toward the end of the clip, Obama presents Van Duzer with a few questions that were crafted to suggest that this was their first encounter.

Then there was the undignified nature of the encounter. You don't just grab the president of the United States and lift him off his feet – although you might do so with your girlfriend. Then, there was the whole grabby thing. The president and the pizza man literally couldn't keep their hands off each other, and Obama's demeanor at this venue was more that of a guy cruising a bar than that of a campaigning incumbent. I know that I am among many who got the creeps while watching the now-famous exchange; perhaps this was offset in part by the video of Joe Biden slobbering on the biker chick in Ohio, which was really disturbing.

During the discussion with Corsi, Kevin Dujan asserted that Obama's homosexuality was common knowledge within Chicago's gay community, as it were. It is not much different, he says, than closeted gay men in Hollywood, who maintain families and sham marriages with "beard" wives in order to advance themselves professionally. He did excoriate Obama, however, for being irresponsible, considering dangers to the nation represented by the subterfuge with regard to his sexuality.

And that – among Obama's plethora of other deceptions – is far more of an issue than what the president does in private.