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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 lobbyAugust 25th, 2010
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, the GOP establishment’s favorite in the race for governor, lost to former insurance executive Rick Scott in Florida’s GOP primary. He conceded the race at almost 1 a.m. via a press release.
“No one could have anticipated the entrance of a multimillionaire with a questionable past who shattered campaign spending records and spent more in four months than has ever been spent in a primary race here in Florida,” McCollum said.
“While I was disappointed with the negative tone of the race, I couldn’t be more proud of our campaign and our supporters for fighting back against false and misleading advertising when we were down by double-digits,” he added.
Among the more contentious issues in the race was McCollum’s hiring of anti-gay extremist George Rekers to the tune of more than $120,000 to serve as a star witness in a lawsuit challenging Florida’s adoption ban for gay couples. That fee was almost double the amount that had been agreed to in a Purchase Requisition between McCollum’s office and Rekers. The court found that Rekers testimony was “motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science,” and “the court cannot consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.” Following the trial, Rekers was discovered returning from a European vacation in the company of a male escort. Rekers insisted that he didn’t hire the escort for sex, but needed someone to help him “lift his luggage” during their extended vacation.
McCollum defended his decision to hire Rekers, saying that he performed a “thorough search” for witnesses but “there wasn’t a whole lot of choice.”
McCollum lost the race 46%-43%, in a primary race that badly split the state Republican Party. Democrats were happy with Scott’s victory, seeing him as their preferred opponent going into November’s general election.
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Candace
August 25th, 2010
Mister Medicaid fraud billionaire Scott hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the election in Novemeber with his Arizona-style proposed immigration laws– in a state where the majority of voters are either immigrants or the relatives of immigrants. This sure puts the anti-gay Cuban Repuglicans in a dilemna.
Lucrece
August 25th, 2010
Cubans are not part of the political animal that is the Latino (i.e. 99% Mexican) contingent.
They don’t give a damn about immigration reform that is harsh on illegal immigrants because Cubans who arrive to Florida are perfectly legal under bogus law that favors them over any other Hispanic, whereas Mexicans are fighting a campaign of apologism for illegal immigrants– good luck with getting public support with that.
Cuban Republicans for the most part are lock-step with the GOP platform, and the paranoia they suffer as a result of emigrating from an oppressive regime leads them to blindly follow any opponent of a perceived Left.
It’s good to see younger Cubans break from the political tradition and lean more Democrat, although perhaps for the wrong reasons (reggaeton artist endorsements; Hialeah culture is ghetto as hell).
With that said, though it’s good to see this bastard lose, he raises valid points. The concerns of lower class American citizens will never be paid respect in a country whose political system is based around who is best at buying ads and paying for TV commercials.
Nevertheless, Scott is even more anti-gay for the record, so this is actually not much of a celebration. I’ll celebrate when Scott loses.
Either way, Florida passed a marriage amendment with 62% public support– with our star group of 18-39 still voting as a majority in support of the amendment– so needless to say Florida is a hellhole for gay people regardless of who wins. Just a matter of how much less of a hellhole it can be.
GrannyGrace
August 25th, 2010
McCollum lost because he runs for public office–doesn’t matter which one, as long as it’s a public office–every election year. Evidently it never occurred to him that Floridians are simply tired of seeing his face on their TVs all the time.
Burr
August 25th, 2010
McCollum said he wanted to ban gays from even being foster parents “to be consistent.” I’m not sure what Scott’s stance was on that.
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