Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJune 16th, 2009
John Ensign with his wife Darlene at a 2005 Las Vegas charity event. (Photos by Marian Umhoefer/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
On 2004, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) supported the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which was an attempt to write discrimination of gays and lesbians into the U.S. Constitution. This is what he said from the Senate floor:
“Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded. For those who say that the Constitution is so sacred that we cannot or should not adopt the Federal Marriage Amendment, I would simply point out that marriage, and the sanctity of that institution, predates the American Constitution and the founding of our nation.”
The sanctity of the born-again Senator’s own marriage didn’t last so long. Ensign has now admitted that he had an affair between December 2007 and August 2008 with a woman who worked for both his re-election campaign and his Battleborn political action committee. To make matters worse, the New York Times reports that the woman’s husband had worked on Ensign’s Senate staff. MSNBC is reporting that Ensign is telling fellow Senators that he’s coming forward to head off an extortion attempt by his former mistress. Politico reports that it’s the mistress’s husband who was trying to shake Ensign down.
Ensign demanded Sen. Larry Craig’s resignation in September 2007 over Craig’s arrest for soliciting sexual favors in a Minnesota airport public men’s room. He also called for President Bill Clinton’s resignation during the Monica Lewinsky scandal while running for the Senate in 1998. No word yet on whether Ensign plans on resigning, or if he’s going to relinquish his chairmanship of the powerful GOP Policy Committee. Darlene Ensign, like Larry Craig’s wife, is standing by her man.
Latest Posts
Featured Reports
In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.
When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.
In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
“Google” is a trademark of Google Inc.
© Box Turtle Bulletin. All Rights Reserved.
Posts 
Posts via daily email:
John
June 16th, 2009
I am beginning to wonder if any of the supoorters of the Defense of Marriage Act and the Federal Marriage Amendment have been faithful to their spouse. Perhaps support for these sorts of things in a marker for being a cheating spouse.
Matt
June 16th, 2009
Sanctity of marriage indeed!
He should absolutely resign- the hypocrite.
DaveA
June 16th, 2009
I know this is a non sequitur…but he is kind of hot! I have always had a thing for older, daddy types.
Alex
June 17th, 2009
I love it. An adulterer teaching us about the sanctity of marriage.
Johnson
June 17th, 2009
Isn’t Adultery a much greater sin than being gay? Apparently not to right wing Republicans, I guess, since they are almost universally guilty of it!
David
May 2nd, 2011
With a wife that beautiful he should claim temporary insanity!
Leave A Comment