Buzzfeed News: “But Aiken has been chafed by what he says is a disgusting anti-gay undercurrent to the recent onslaught of sexualized material released against the 26-year-old Republican.
“I am loath to defend him in any way but I will say that that last video with him on the bed pissed me off,” Aiken told BuzzFeed News, referring to a leaked video that showed Cawthorn in a bed, his naked buttocks visible, simulating sex with a male friend.
“The idea that anybody would gay-shame someone in order to try to embarrass him in that district and then call themselves a Democrat, I think is ridiculous,” Aiken said. “And if Democrats are the ones who are attacking him and using his sexual orientation — or worse, jokes about what might be a perceived sexual orientation — I don’t really want them in my party, to be honest.”
Since Cawthorn outraged his fellow lawmakers in DC in March by asserting that he had been invited to cocaine-fueled orgies (a claim he later said, after being privately admonished by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, was exaggerated), there have been a series of humiliating leaks and allegations made against him.
But Democrats are divided on both the strategy and the ultimate impact of the attacks. Even within the local LGBTQ community, some believe the salacious material is beneath them and plays into anti-gay stereotypes, while others feel that it rightly highlights the hypocrisy of politicians who fail to meet their own moral standards of decency.”