Anti-Gay Rep. Randy Forbes Slammed from Right and Left

This morning I wrote about my increasingly homophobic former classmate, Congressman Randy Forbes, who appears to be attempting to block campaign funding for gay Republican candidates from the National Republican Congressional Committee.  Forbes motivation?  Obviously, kissing the large bigoted asses of the Christofascist.  And perhaps, in my view, reprising the behavior of former Congressman Ed Schrock.  Since Politico's story hit, Forbes has been getting slammed by both pundits of the right and the left.  On the right, a piece in Bearing Drift, perhaps the leading conservative political blog in Virginia, this statement appeared:

Forbes did himself no favors with his statements: . . . .Notice anything missing? Like say a statement making it abundantly clear that using sexual orientation to disqualify a candidate is a no-no? Me neither, and that’s the problem.

Has the Republican Party of Virginia fallen so far that opposing Bob McDonnell’s tax hike is considered “extreme,” but backroom homophobia is just fine?

Memo to my Congressman: the clock is ticking; I think 24 hours to be sufficient for a much needed clarification. Likewise for the newfound “moderates” who make up the Bolling faction (as it were) of the the RPV: you have 24 hours to practice what you preach, condemn this behavior (if you don’t think Forbes actually did it, you can feel free to blast the concept without touching him), and show me this is about more than giving yourselves cover for tax increases.

The left has been equally brutal.  Here are highlights from a statement by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Virginia Congressman Randy Forbes is back in the news. We last wrote about Forbes in October when he was set to fundraise for an anti-gay hate group, the American Family Association (AFA). Now he’s pushing to deny money to gay Republican candidates for Congress – because they’re gay. Unfortunately for Forbes, his anti-gay bigotry is undercutting his effort to become chair of the powerful House Armed Services Committee.

We were hopeful that his decision to skip the hate group event signaled a shift away from anti-gay bigotry. We were wrong.
Forbes, sadly, has a long track record of bigotry, and his latest efforts fit nicely into a career of denying civil rights to LGBT Americans. As Zack Ford points out at ThinkProgress, he argued in 2007 that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prevent LGBT Americans from being fired for their sexual orientation, would “destroy the institution of marriage.” He also supports a constitutional amendment to overturn state laws allowing same-sex marriage and introduced legislation that would allow businesses with a religious affiliation to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

As we’ve noted in the past, Forbes has worked closely with the AFA and appeared numerous times on its radio shows, including with Tony Perkins and homophobe-in-chief Bryan Fischer. One of the first videos on his official YouTube channel, posted in 2008, is an AFA special called the “War on God.”

Forbes’ close relationship with the AFA renders him unfit to chair the committee that oversees America’s modern military. After all, this is a group whose chief spokesperson and head of public policy – Bryan Fischer – argues that we must “bring to an end the practice of putting women in the military” and “stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military.”
Forbes can’t be held responsible for every bigoted thing that comes out of Fischer’s mouth, but he has gone out of his way to work with the AFA – more than perhaps any other member of Congress. He has made it clear that he will use every bit of leverage he has to undermine equal rights. He has no place dictating policy for our military.

   Actions have consequences and I hope Forbes' bigotry ends up biting him in the ass big time.