Focus On The Rainbow

Roy Ashburn, the conservative California state senator who has a record of voting against gay rights and issues admitted Monday on radio station KERN (video/audio clip here) that he is gay. Apparently one of the “best kept open secrets” in California which many in California political circles, state and local media and even members of the LGBT community knew, or at the very least suspected. What has angered many LGBT bloggers and activists is so many “knew” but never called out Ashburn on his accountability in being gay and yet voting against LGBTs.

Ashburn who was arrested last week for DUI and was seen leaving a popular gay bar with another man still says that even though he is gay he will continue to vote in his conservative, and presumably anti-gay manner, on behalf of his constituents.

In the interview Ashburn said, “The best way to handle that is to be truthful and to say to my constituents and all who care that I am gay,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s something that has affected, nor will it affect, how I do my job.”

“My votes reflect the wishes of the people in my district. I have always felt that my faith and allegiance was to the people, there, in the district, my constituents. And so as each of these individual measures came before the Legislature I cast ‘no’ votes, usually ‘no’ votes, because the measures were . . . almost always acknowledging rights or assigning identification to homosexual persons.”

In an article at the Sacramento Bee, Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, a gay rights group that sponsors many state bills, called Ashburn’s comments about his voting record “a lame excuse.”

“He’s blaming his constituents,” Kors said. “There are legislators in the Central Valley who have voted for LBGT (lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender) rights.”

Never missing an opportunity “turn” gay and lesbians away from their “sinful ways”, one anti-gay moralists group is ready to “help” Ashburn with his wrong choice of lifestyle.

Benjamin Lopez, lobbyist for the Traditional Values Coalition, said, “I don’t know why Roy strayed. But he said that the Rev. Louis Sheldon, founder of the coalition, was open to help Ashburn with counseling.

In a press release California Equality said, “We can empathize with Senator Ashburn’s long and difficult journey to admit that he is gay. Equality California looks forward to working with the Senator to use his experience to educate the people in his district on why he deserves the same rights and privileges as a gay man as any other Californian.

For an earlier posting on the hypocricsy of anti-gay Conservatives go here.