If he's out there, he's on here...

When Manhunt.com's co-owner, Jonathan Crutchley, donated $2,300 to Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, some gays felt betrayed. QueerClick recaps the controversy and examines if the two are as unlikely a pair as they seem.

A lot's been going on over the past couple of weeks at Manhunt.com. If you're a member of the massively popular hook-up site, you might know that it just launched a ManCam video chat feature that "enables members around the world to easily connect with each other 'live' before meeting in person; and offers a fun alternative when meeting in person is not possible."

Almost concurrently with ManCam's release, writer Michael Joseph Gross released an article, entitled, "Is Manhunt Destroying Gay Culture?" on Out.com. In his article, Gross wonders why so many national political victories and reforms— such as a repeal of the military ban and securing of gay marriage— have remained beyond gay grasp. When someone replies, "It's because so many of us spend so many hours of so many days online, doing things that make us feel ashamed of ourselves," Mr. Gross latches onto the explanation, and decries online cruising in general (and Manhunt in specific) for intensifying our isolation, exaggerating our propensity to objectify each other, and diminishing our sense of life's nonsexual possibilities.

Any LTR-minded Manhunt user who has found themselves disappointed by the site's numerous "Sup?" e-mails and "unlocked" butthole pics, will identify with Mr. Gross' sad psychosocial portrait. Yet, in targeting Manhunt specifically, he's excluded other gay hookup sites like Gay.com (owned by the same company as Out) and other sexualized marketing that his argument could have included. He also ignores the internet's role in the long, painful history of anonymous gay sex and the myriad ways in which the internet promotes non-sexual gay culture offline. In short, his impassioned article poses an important question but provides too easy an answer.

Around the same time Gross' article came out, it came to light that Manhunt.com's "liberal Republican" co-owner, Jonathan Crutchley, had donated $2,300 (the maximum allowed) to Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Below an interview with Crutchley on Online Personals Watch, he responded to another user's announcement of the donation thus: "I believe McCain will be a better commander-in-chief than Obama, who also opposes gay marriage. If we have an experienced, seasoned person defending the country in this dangerous age, we will be able to argue about the gay agenda later."

After the news of Crutchley's donation went for a spin around the gay blogosphere, a wave of ManHunt cancellations followed and Mr. Crutchley stepped down as Manhunt CEO. McCain retruned Crutchley's donation and Manhunt's adamantly non-Republican co-founder, Larry Basile, did damage control by playing good cop. According to Basile, Crutchley said, "If John is too good for my money, I'll give it to (presumptive Democratic nominee) Barack (Obama)." Crutchley has since written a "touching" letter to the employees at Manhunt, according to Basile, and is now committed to supporting Obama. "Someone had a reality check," Basile said.

Mr. Crutchley's donation to McCain is hardly shocking and it's doubtful he's undergone a complete political change of heart— it's still a free country with a private vote. Mr. Crutchley isn't a single-issue voter nor is he alone in thinking that gay rights will barely affect this year's presidential election. He'll continue to profit off Manhunt and those who want to change services have alternatives. It also makes sense for McCain had to reject Mr. Crutchley's money— because of all the attention it got, it would have ended up becoming a press nightmare (even though the Republican National Committee has accepted gay porn money before).

It's a fact that lots of seemingly liberal businesses deal in conservative politics and that's perhaps the most startling realization for Mr. Crutchley's detractors. A gay sex site funding an anti-gay party seems like betrayal. But it merely reveals the gap between those who see gay sex as anti-establishment and those who see gay money as the quickest road to political recognition. One of the most persuasive arguments in favor of gay marriage has nothing to do with equal rights or the consequences of instiutionalized homophobia, but all the money waiting to be made off gay weddings. And it's precisely that financial influence that Mr. Gross thinks gays should wield.

Manhunt.com grosses $2.4 million per month — almost $30 million a year. Worldwide, the over 1-million member site gets 30,000 new users per week. This makes Manhunt's membership larger than the membership of every major gay political organization combined. Its annual income from memberships alone form roughly the same as the total amount of individual contributions to this country's two biggest gay political groups, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. In Mr. Gross' view, if we contributed as much energy towards social change as we do towards getting our rocks off, we might all be married and insured with adopted children by now.

But as a political base, homosexuals are a fractured group. We can't seem to agree whether "marriage" is a purely religious term or if civil unions would solidify our standing as second-class citizens. We can't agree whether transsexuals should be dropped from anti-hate crimes legislation to make it more palatable. We can't even agree that we're all gay and like cock. The only thing we can agree on is that there are people who have identified us as gay and consider us worth denying rights. In politics as in business, it's money, not humanity, that matters. And to whoever throws their two cents in the arena— especially online where it can be dug up and put on display— it's caveat emptor.