Anti-Gay Sen. Ashburn (R) Busted For DUI Leaving Gay Bar

Republican State Senator Roy Ashburn was arrested 2 a.m. Wednesday morning for driving under the influence (DUI) less than a block from the well-known gay bar Faces in Sacramento. There was another man (so far, unidentified) in the car at the time of the arrest.

From Joe.My.God:

Ashburn has been a loud opponent of LGBT rights and has organized and hosted anti-gay marriage rallies for the Traditional Values Coalition. He also has a 100% rating from the anti-gay Capitol Resource Family Impact group for voting against every LGBT rights bill during his tenure.

[...]

Ashburn is being term-limited out of office in 2010. In January he surprised supporters by announcing that he would not be running for the U.S. House or the powerful California State Tax Board, two jobs he'd publicly had his eye on for the last year. Ashburn divorced his wife in 2003.

ANTI-GAY VOTING RECORD: In March 2009, Sen. Ashburn voted against a Senate resolution declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Ashburn voted three times to oppose the creation of Harvey Milk Day. In September he voted against California recognizing out of state same-sex marriages. In 2008 he voted to oppose an expansion of the state's insurance laws to include sexual orientation as a protected class.

Here is a video of a local television station's coverage of the scandal:

I don't usually cover closeted anti-gay politician's scandals but this one is just so egregious, it's unavoidable. I'd love to hear what openly gay Speaker of the Assembly John Perez or openly gay State Senator Mark Leno have to say about this "affair."

Big shout out to Joe.My.God for alerting me to the "gay" angle of this story. The report of the state senator driving a state-issued vehicle being arrested for a DUI has been news down here in Southern California, but curiously they didn't mention the fact he was leaving a gay bar with another man at the time.