There’s only about so much gay-bashing one can tolerate, and this new American hero has found her limit:
Alabama’s only openly gay legislator is putting her anti-gay colleagues on notice: If they keep espousing family values rhetoric as a reason to oppose marriage equality, she’ll start making their marital infidelities public.
“I will not stand by and allow legislators to talk about ‘family values’ when they have affairs, and I know of many who are and have,” wrote state Rep. Patricia Todd (D) on Facebook over the weekend, as reported by the TimesDaily in Alabama. “I will call our elected officials who want to hide in the closet out.”
Todd’s post came after a federal judge ruled Friday that Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. She told The Huffington Post that she decided to issue her threat after reading some of the anti-gay rhetoric coming from certain elected officials in the state.
I hope they keep running their yaps and she drops the KABOOM on them.
Corner Stone
That’s like an old school WWF style DDT.
Come at me, bro.
dedc79
Seems fair to me. After all, it’s adultery (and not homosexuality) that made god’s top ten list, right?
Gin & Tonic
When you tire of bigfooting Anne Laurie, you bigfoot Betty Cracker?
scuffletuffle
Let it be done!
JPL
In GA the legislator that introduced the gay ban amendment, in order to save marriage was an adulterer. In fact I think there is a commandment against that. hmmm
also, too.. I think our representatives should pass the commandment test. If you broke one of God’s laws, you need to resign. By our I mean the state of GA.
Josie
I think this is great! All these hypocritical creeps need to be called out on their ridiculous positions.
Violet
I was sure this had a McDonald’s angle, given the title.
Violet
@Josie: The only acceptable position is missionary.
khead
She can drop all the KABOOM she wants and the folks in Alabama won’t care. So, good luck with that.
Having said that, KABOOM was a GREAT Activision game for the Atari 2600.
Josie
@Violet: I wondered if someone would notice my word use there. I should have known not to doubt this community.
rikyrah
Spill that tea!!
Violet
@JPL: They should pass the Colbert test as well. If you as a legislator demand the Ten Commandments be put up in courthouses and state capitol buildings, you’d better be able to recite them from memory when asked.
Belafon
@khead: I suspect some wives will care, which will be enough.
Violet
John Cole, can we have new pictures of your pets?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@khead: Yup, just look down the road to Senator Vitter, or a ways up north to Congressman Appalachian Trail whose name I’m too lazy to google. Nothin’ like some mumbling about praying for redemption from GOP hound to get them feeling forgive-y.
Violet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think the live boy or dead girl rule might still apply. Not sure, though. If she’s got dirt on them having teh ghey seksy time, that might be a problem for the family values married guys.
moops
The people won’t care. Perhaps they should, but they won’t.
debit
@Violet: Seconding this. Also want to know how Lily, Rosie and Steve feel about the new additions.
Big ole hound
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ….and the wives will stand behind “their” man and praise the opportunity to love him more and go back to being the dutiful southern gal. Humph.
chopper
It’s Alabama. Hatin’ on gays stills wins out.
Violet
@debit: Yeah, we’ve had some pupdates, but haven’t had the full description of how the previous piglets are handling the new additions. Plus, I need moar Ginger!
Corner Stone
@khead:
Fucking A! That was a great game. I’m lovin’ it!
JPL
@Violet: haha.. What do you mean adultery is in the commandments?
Roger Moore
@Violet:
I think you should at least be able to describe the difference between Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish versions of the 10 Commandments and justify why the particular version you propose putting up (including your choice of translation) is superior to all others.
Pogonip
I’m with her. If there’s anybody who has no cause to be holier than thou, it’s your average pampered politician. I say expose them all.
jl
@moops: Pat Robertson will get some questions about it, and he’ll dismiss it as boys being boys, any hetero lady pols who been naughty will concern him more, since they probably did not get an OK from their man before doing naughty stuff, or didn’t have a man to OK it. But even that will be deemed minor compared to same sex awfulness.
So, you are right on the media response in general. But, some people might be wrecked politically if their doings were particularly ugly (which would not surprise me).
I am not familiar with the ways of Alabama, it seemed like a foreign country the brief time I was there, much more than even Mississippi. But I was not there long, so maybe happened into a particularly backward place and demographic. So, I won’t second guess her. If she does it by driving around the capitol blaring out the scoop with loudspeaker mounted on top of a Subaru, it might make the national news. Which would be fun.
scav
You’ld think they’d be rushing to expose the full perfection of their sanctfied family life and culture to us necessarily immoral degenerates.
Show us how it’s done Y’all! Dance Poster Children, Dance! Can y’all flap those little wings as fast as you flap your lecturing tongues? Not that many of the good folk of AL will care, that hypocrisy is exactly their sacred culture they all want kept in a terrarium and worshipped and preserved.
The “right” kind of people are hypocrites (etc): offer not good for anyone else.
Laertes
You’re likely to get your wish, I should think. What are the odds a bunch of Alabama Republicans stop acting like dbags?
Pogonip
@Violet: Seconded! I’ve had a John Cole kind of day. Yesterday, I did my father’s shopping and did my own while I was at it. I left what wouldn’t freeze, or wouldn’t be harmed if it did, in the trunk of his car overnight. I noticed what I thought was a large car vacuum, but figured he wasn’t going to use it since it was pouring rain, so I just set my stuff on top of it. Overnight, it stopped pouring rain and started pouring snow. So he got into the trunk of his car to get the leaf blower he uses to blow snow off cars. His trunk light is out. So when grabbing his leaf blower he dumped half my stuff.
So I get everything packed back up and moved to my car, and he sends me home with another 40,000 boxes of my late Mother’s stuff. In all that stuff I failed to notice my purse was not in there till I got home and went to pay the rent. I had left it at my father’s house. My father’s house is 75 miles away. So I am purseless for the week.
I can has pet pictures, please?
Tiny Tim
Presumably some in the local press already know about some of these affairs and have chosen not to report on them. It’s pretty hard to hide an affair unless you literally never appear in public together. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the right or wrong call by the press, but it is what it is.
JPL
Decades ago when Dukakis should have beaten Bush, Sr., I was on a beach in Destin. The couple next to me were discussing the election. The female mentioned concern about Bush, Sr. cheating and the male said look at his wife. I’m sure years later they both were appalled about Clinton’s behavior.
Howard Beale IV
Fuck with the threats-the second the first Tableganical rep introduced a damn thing she should have dropped all of the names into the state record right then and there.
Enough of this shit. They bring gun? You bring a Tsar Bomba.
Violet
@Pogonip: Oh, I’m sorry. I feel your pain on handling the parental shopping and all that stuff. So stressful. Is there anyone who can meet you halfway with the purse or something so you won’t be without for the week? That’s a long time to go without ID, credit cards, etc.
JPL
@Howard Beale IV: It doesn’t matter. Hypocrisy is okay in states that believe whether or not you are born again.
also.. I was pushed polled once for a local candidate and they asked me if I was born again.. I mentioned that my mother had a hard enough time the first time.. thank you very much
Elizabelle
Moar Ginger!
Moar Lily!
Moar Rosie!
Just moar.
cmorenc
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They can be forgiven because a man can stop screwing women he’s not married to, a man can stop screwing around with prostitutes and diapers, and he’s still good-old-boy heterosexual who can get right with God and his wife, but someone who is homosexual is a sinful pervert forever according to Leviticus,. Apparently, you can be forgiven for violating the Ten Commandments, but not for violating a certain passage in Leviticus. OH, WAIT! I forgot about all those wingnut psychotherapost-preachers (such as Marcus Bachman) whose specialty is “reparative therapy” to “cure” homosexuals into going straight.
RaflW
@Violet: Those who want to put them up in a court house/govt building should be required to prove they are obeying all 10. Annually.
Howard Beale IV
@JPL: They’ll be in for a shock when the time comes-especially if the Red Arsonists they blindly elected succeed in yanking what little government support they do get away from them.
Go ahead and eat your ammo, you morans. You asked for it.
Comrade Dread
The only way the GOP voters will care is if they happen to be having affairs with someone of the same sex. Even then, given a choice between a gay GOP candidate and a Democrat, I’m still convinced that most of them will still vote for the gay guy/gal.
Tree With Water
If memory serves: FDR had known his Hudson Valley neighbor and assistant secretary of state, Sumner Welles, since Welles was a little boy. An incident during WW2 occurred in which Welles drunkenly propositioned a male railroad porter. His state department colleague and political nemesis, William Bullitt, found out about the incident, and used it to professionally destroy Welles. Incredibly, Bullitt still believed he was a valued presidential counselor. FDR cultivated that delusion, and subsequently urged Bullitt to run for the senate in Pennsylvania, guaranteeing him his full support. Bullitt agreed. But he no sooner left the White House than FDR ordered an aide to “cut his throat”. Which the aide proceeded to do, and Bullitt’s career was over.
karen
Let’s see what happens if one of those infidelities was same sex. THEN you’re cooking with gas.
Howard Beale IV
@cmorenc:Ousourced to Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian on Biblical Marriage
1weirdTrick
Oh the incivility! *strangling myself, clutching at my pearls*
Seriously… the comments on the local Alabama news site are hilarious. Todd is “burning bridges” and “alienating” those she must work w/to get legislation passed. She “has no respect… only intolerance and hate“.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Moar Steve, also too!
Howard Beale IV
@karen:
Time to buy popcorn futures.
JPL
@Howard Beale IV: That won’t happen. They blame the minorities for taking away their hard earned benefits. The republicans have set up a scam where those on Social Security disabilities are taking from the hard earned pensions of the retirement folk.
Zinsky
Paybacks are Hell. These imbecilic Southern-fried crackers who are always waving the Ten Coommandments around, can’t name more than three. Ask them to do so sometime and watch their moronic faces turn even whiter!
Zinsky
Paybacks are Hell. Ask one of those Southern-fried imbeciles to name the Ten Commandments sometime and watch their faces turn even whiter than they already are. I’ll bet not one of them can name more than three.
AxelFoley
Good. More people in office, state and federal level, need to call out these hypocrites.
Josie
Pet pics! Pet pics! Pet pics!
jl
@Howard Beale IV:
” Let’s see what happens if one of those infidelities was same sex. THEN you’re cooking with gas. ”
I did not think of that. My hetero imagination was in a rut (heh heh…) and I did not even realize it.
I find this Alabama state legislator’s ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to her newsletter.
MCA1
I think those of you poo-poo’ing the potential effects of being named as a philanderer by Todd are missing the point. It’s true that if you do the right forgiveness kabuki and manage to get the wife to publicly stand by you and all, you’ll continue to win as a Republican in a red state. That’s not the threat. The threat is that you’ll have to go through it all to come out clean on the other side. I don’t think anyone actually would look forward to the airing of their dirty laundry like that. Who wants to live like that, go through the stress of it and risk their marriage, if it would be easier to not have their misdeeds broadcast? Even if they’ve got a relationship with their wife where infidelity is accepted as the price of marrying an ambitious politician or whatever, the wife certainly doesn’t want that out in the public.
Someone cited Mark Sanford, aka Governor Appalachian Trail, as a case in point that this is a meaningless threat. Terrible example. When that all broke, his wife publicly announced that he was going through a midlife crisis, moved herself and the kids out of the governor’s mansion, and eventually divorced him. I don’t think the fact that he’s in the U.S. House again probably makes up for that. Maybe the marriage would have eventually ended, anyway, but it’s probably a safe bet the public shame and press fiasco contributed. In addition, any national aspirations he may have had are dead.
Any of Todd’s colleagues in the Alabama state legislature with plans to move to statewide elections will absolutely weigh the skeletons in their closets if they think she’s serious and/or actually has dirt on them, before using the particular dogwhistle she’s talking about.
AxelFoley
@RaflW:
I had to do a second take there.
khead
@MCA1:
Actually, the fact that Mark Sanford is currently in the US House just reinforces my post. And others. Who gives a shit about national aspirations? The dude is still there. The folks in Alabama will be too.
Corner Stone
@MCA1: Not sure I get where you are going with this post. It seems a little bit in two different directions.
JPL
@khead: yup It would take a gay black horse to get rid of some folk.
Pogonip
@Violet: Nope, everybody we know on that street is about as old and fragile as my father, except my son–who can’t drive. My magic cards that I need to get into work are in my car. I have an account at the credit union and I believe they will stretch a point and let me make a small withdrawal by identifying myself with the magic card. No bills were due immediately except the rent so I just got a pad of checks out of the desk drawer and went over and paid it. So it’s not a big disaster, just a stupid one.
delk
If you are going to wear glass slippers, you shouldn’t kick stones.
Corner Stone
Why is TRMS ignoring the lesbian mayor of Houston who has been re-elected? It’s the fourth largest city in America.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: If such a picture exists, I want to see Lily awake. I strongly suspect that animal is part zoo lion.
And we want PUPPIES!
muddy
@debit:
This is what I want to hear about. Also, too, SEE. Puppies are puppies and are cute but I want to hear about animals with opinions. But speaking of puppies, next time be sure to get plenty of yummy puppy tummy in the shot. Speaking of actual puppy tummy here, Ginger has been exposed sufficiently (poor dear).
Pogonip
@jl: Her newsletter may have some very interesting headlines!
Gex
This can’t work. First, any politician that was spouting off negatively about marriage equality who stops will be essentially confirming their infidelity. Second, these holier than thou Christian crusaders just ask forgiveness from their God and their followers, especially if they maintain a sufficiently gay-hating stance, and usually get it.
Violet
@Pogonip: What I learned from taking care of both my parents who had health problems at the same time this summer was to take deep breaths regularly. And slow down when you feel yourself going a bit crazy. Double check you have all the things you need–and you’ve personally seen them and can put your hands on them right now–before going somewhere. It’s so easy to get caught up in the busy-ness and crazy-making nature of taking care of an elder and forget to take care of yourself. Hang in there.
khead
@JPL:
The most important thing is to bash the other side. Even if you are having sex with a tree while doing so.
Pogonip
@Violet: Actually, we have very little stress now that we no longer have to care for Mom. THAT was really hard work. Everybody who cares for victims of the various senile dementias should get a 300% raise.
Violet
@khead: There have to be some limits to what Alabama voters will tolerate. Locking up multiple blonde girls over years? Sex with horses in front of children? A series of dead boys? There’s some stuff that is such a horror show that even the Alabama Republican Party couldn’t keep supporting that person. I just don’t know where the line is.
Howard Beale IV
@khead: About the only things worthwhile in Alabama used to be the Klipsch speaker manufacturing plant and NASA’s operations there. The rest could just be burned to the ground and salted over.
As Neil Young used to say: “Alabama-you go the rest of the Union to carry you along.”
Violet
@Pogonip: Maybe you are now feeling some of the effects of a let down after your mother has passed. You keep going and going through the stress because you don’t have any other choice and then it’s over and your body kind of doesn’t know how to react.
Gex
@khead: And I’m not willing to put a lot of weight on how hard it is for Sanford to lose the wife that he was cheating on. You have to heavily discount this “price” that he paid.
Pogonip
@Violet: Big problem I have is Dad is pushing stuff out the door so fast. He HAS been waiting 65 years to get rid of it, so in his shoes I too would probably be gleefully tossing it out the door with both hands. The problem is he thinks it’s all junk and it isn’t. I barely caught him in time to stop him pitching a package of good hem clips. He’s done his share of sewing but somehow missed learning about hem clips, and might not care anyway. He just wants his barracks back in order after 66 years with a pack rat.
He did inspire us to get OUR barracks in order. Even my son, also a pack rat, has been letting go of stuff. Dad was way ahead of his time. Today, people like him are making good money as “professional organizers.”
Mike in NC
@khead: Mark Sanford will probably run for the U.S. Senate in 2020 should one of the incumbents decide to retire, and he’ll probably easily win.
Howard Beale IV
@Gex: When Larry Flynt supports your campaign for Congess, along with both Pauls, what the fuck does that say? You’re dealing with a first-class amoral dick who deserves whatever the fuck happens to him. Get into an life-threatening auto accident? Render no aid to him. And i hope his mistress/ex-wife gave him a raging case of herpes.
Baud
Let Al Roker sleep!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mike in NC: Can he run a successful campaign without his ex-wife’s money?
JPL
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): silly.. The Koch family will fund him.
MCA1
@Corner Stone: My point was that those saying this threat is no deterrent are underestimating the human aspects of this while focusing solely on the political ramifications. I doubt the calculation of some Alabama state rep. with a dirty little secret is “ehh, fuck it. I’ll still get re-elected if I spend a couple months groveling and begging the public for forgiveness” to the exclusion of considering the pain of having to do all that groveling, having those talks and counseling sessions and the forever broken relationship with their spouse, and the other human aspects of having an affair publicly aired and enduring the fallout. I doubt any politician who’s lived through that would say it’s no big deal or that they wouldn’t rather have avoided going through it, all other things being equal.
Howard Beale IV
@MCA1: There’s also a personal financial cost that can be non-trivial depending on one’s wealth.
Gex
Actually I have long believed that the main motivation for many of the anti-gay leaders and politicians is the money that holding that position brings in. The donations in kind that churches give when they push a politician from the pulpit, the special interest group money, the donations and votes that their anti-gay position gets them is what will keep them fighting marriage.
There was a clown in MN, Bradlee Dean, friend of Michelle Bachmann who made around a quarter mil annually going to public schools speaking about values and teaching kids to hate gay people. And he’s a tiny little speck in the anti-gay industry. There’s a ridiculous amount of money to be made doing this. My guess is that these politicians are just as likely to continue to be motivated by the incentives that have them speaking out on this issue in the first place.
Howard Beale IV
Hmmmm…..
Cops: Ex-Fox producer kills himself outside NYC headquarters
Howard Beale IV
@Gex:
That Talebangeical had to cough up $24k in legal fees in his quixotic lawsuit agaunst Rachel Maddow. Looks like the HQ building was put up for rent in 2013.
He is #613 in the Encyclopedia of American Loons:
Howard Beale IV
@Gex: Looks like now he’s marginalized to that cesspool known as WorldNutDaily. How fitting.
Corner Stone
@MCA1: This threat is a deterrent to certain actions/outcomes. I got that part.
But why shouldn’t the assholes be hoisted at some certain parts?
I, for one, don’t give a damn about who is boning who, or where or when or how, as long as it’s consensual.
But don’t tell me these assholes get to have it both ways?
The Pale Scot
@Howard Beale IV:
Because a head shot would have had no effect.
Howard Beale IV
@The Pale Scot:
No, it would have been VERY messy to the passers-by: would you want to be cleaning up brain splatter as you were walking by?
Heliopause
For those scoring at home, the levitical punishment for adultery is the same as for gay sex.
the Conster
@Heliopause:
Being stoned?
Howard Beale IV
@the Conster: Yep-physical stoning-not of the modren marijuana inhaling type of stoning.
burnspbesq
The only way gay rights will ever get traction in Alabama is if half the Crimson Tide’s two-deep depth chart comes out.
Heliopause
@the Conster:
Your balls get inflated to 11.5 psi.
the Conster
@Heliopause:
lol. Sounds painful!
TriassicSands
Anti-gay rhetoric coming from Alabama Republicans? Impossible. Why that would be almost as crazy as accusing them of racism and we all know there are no racists in the Republican Party. The true racists are the Democrats. In other news, up is down, on is off, and stupid is smart.
Citizen Alan
@khead:
To be fair, Sanford is “there” representing a fairly red district after defeating a moderate to conservative Democrat whose sole claim to fame was that she was Stephen Colbert’s sister.
SRW1
@Violet:
Well, at least it’s the safest. At least for the participants with the external organs.
FridayNext
This looks like a good description of blackmail to me, except I am not sure what the demand is for. “Stop talking in a way I don’t like” is hardly the same as “give me a million dollars” but the basic outlines are there. Not that I disagree with her motives or goals, mind you, I just think she should have gone ahead and blabbed away without the threat.
Rook
But the ones having affairs will have to keep flapping their yaps otherwise everyone will know they were having affairs! Damn, what a catch 22.
That, as they say, is quite the Catch 22!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@dedc79:
Only because you don’t read the bible with the special glasses these conservatives have.
Chris
@Tree With Water:
Good God, I love FDR.
MCA1
@Corner Stone: Not sure I follow, but if you’re saying you’d rather someone not just threaten to out philanderers in order to get them to stop blowing the anti-ghey dogwhistles, but just go on ahead and start naming names, I don’t think I disagree. That would be a departure from some sort of unspoken professional courtesy, without much of a provocation, and could backfire, I suppose. Also agree that, personally, I don’t give a crap about the extracurricular activities of my elected representatives. Unless, of course, they spend a lot of their time yammering on about traditional families and the stability of marriage and all that, in which case the level of hypocrisy pushes a little too far. Perhaps some faithfully married hetero legislator in Alabama could make the same threat toward the family values screamers.
JR in WV
Mealy mouthed hypocrisy is my least favorite moral stance. Esp. when it’s a wide stance! Nothing is worse than spouting holier than thou religious nonsense while at the same time violating most of the commandments one’s own religion requires adherence to.
And of course Republican theocrat politicians are the worst (or would that be best?) at this kind of evil. Trying to destroy others’ happiness in order to maintain political power, or moral power over women, there are a thousand different flavors of this hypocrisy, all stink.
Chris
@JR in WV:
And yet these people are ubitquitous. Bin Laden was alledgedly found with a bunch of porn in his house. The Taliban forbade the use of drugs, but were fine selling it abroad. The less said about the Saudi royals, the better. And, of course, stories of cops (American and other) sniffing from the stash of drugs they’ve just confiscated, or allowing brothels to operate in exchange for a chance to use them, or whatever, are legendary.
Scratch an RWA/puritan, find a closet hedonist. It’s almost as foolproof as “scratch a glibertarian, find a guy with a big government check in his past. Or present.”
Calouste
@RaflW: That’s an easy one is it? State representatives swear to uphold the constitution. Putting up the 10 commandments outside the state house if a violation in spirit, if not in letter, of the First Amendment. Which makes their oath that they would uphold the Constitution, contrary to their action, a violation of the 8th (or 9th depending on which version you follow) commandment. QED.
Howlin Wolfe
@moops: Yes, perhaps they should care, if they don’t want to be lazy, dishonest hypocrites.