Christopher Shays -- another example of the GOP's weird views on sex

Working dogs
Originally uploaded by vegacura.

Via Shake's Sis, my current representative, Chris Shays ("an independent voice in Congress") found the pictures he saw of Abu Ghraib to be all about sex.

U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays was under fire yesterday after saying in a debate earlier this week that the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison was not torture but rather a "sex ring" involving National Guard troops.

Amnesty International officials and Shays' challengers in the 4th District said it was absurd for the Republican incumbent to call the acts at the Iraqi prison anything but torture.

"This is outrageous for a sitting congressman who was shown pictures (of Abu Ghraib) that were not even available to the public because they were supposed to be more provocative," said Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast regional director for Amnesty International. "The photographs did not only depict humiliating and degrading treatment of prisoners. They showed prisoners who were killed."

During the debate Wednesday night at Congregation B'nai Israel in Bridgeport, Shays, R-Bridgeport, was asked what the government should do to restore the country's moral image in the world after accusations of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

"Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture," Shays said according to a transcript provided by Democratic challenger Diane Farrell's campaign and confirmed by others who attended the debate. "It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from (Maryland) who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked. And they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture."

Shays defended his comments yesterday, saying he doesn't doubt that there has been torture at other prisons, but not at Abu Ghraib.

"I saw probably 600 pictures of really gross, perverted stuff," Shays said. "The bottom line was it was sex. . . . [sic] It wasn't primarily about torture."

Shays defined torture as anything that could cause mental or physical pain or sleep depravation.

Shays is right about the definition, but to call the photos from Abu Ghraib evidence of a sex ring, says more about him than Abu Ghraib. If you don't believe me, take a look for yourself.

And Shays is considered a "moderate." A thinking, Northeast Republican.

The Right is constantly complaining about the coarsening of our culture. As if steamy TV shows set in Southern California are corrupting our youth. Maybe they are. But far worse is the apparently prevalent view among GOP politicians that coercion, violence against the powerless, and working dogs are, at their heart, all about teh sex. Fucking deviants. Literally and figuratively.