hockeyTom:
That is truly frightening! eek!

Illini_fan:
Indeed, makes me wonder if there's an underlying rift in their party, especially in light Katherine Harris' latest remarks.

FeverDog:
Relax, gmg, he hasn't been elected yet. But his being a Republican in Florida increases his chances.

gmginsfo:
given the strength the religious right once held in our party...

Illini_fan:
... I am [sic] yet to see this weakening of the religious right in the mainstream Republican party or America at large. I'm pretty sure the local state Republican candidate is running on a "family values" platform.

gmginsfo:
"Pretty sure" =/= "I know."

"Local state Republican candidate" =/= "the mainstream Republican party or America at large."

Re-read my post, Illini, and if your eyes and mind are open you'll see what I meant. If not, then widen your view.

Sorry, FT, I don't know Crist's orientation, but from what I've heard, I doubt that he's gay. My point was that it's encouraging to see a more tolerant attitude on gay rights from GOPers wherever they're from. Lord knows it's not an everyday occurrence! wink

gmginsfo:
"Pretty sure" =/= "I know."

"Local state Republican candidate" =/= "the mainstream Republican party or America at large."

Re-read my post, Illini, and if your eyes and mind are open you'll see what I meant. If not, then widen your view.

fantomas:
Wait, am I reading GMG's comments right that Crist is a gay man, or am I misreading them? If he is for civil unions, this is great; it would be even better if he were for full marriage/partnership rights, like some northeastern Republicans (Bloomberg, Weld, etc.). But it is a good sign, and as GMG says, not ALL Republicans are against equal rights for gay people, just most of the ones who have power (from W on down to most GOP governors outside the northeast).

But what about the Republicans he's running against? Are they equally pro-gay rights? What about the Democrats? Are there any links or citations to show what the others' positions are?

I look at it this way: most Democrats when running will not go all the way and say they're for gay marriage, though they often will say privately they're for gay equal rights. They will publicly hedge and cadge, but when an equality bill comes up, they usually go along with it, even many of the "conservative" ones. Look at California, or New Jersey's legislature, or Vermont's, or Connecticut's. Most Republicans running for statewide or national office are, on principle, opposed to equal rights for gays, and often use religion as their fallback. Some like Ken Blackwell of Ohio, Rick Perry of Texas, etc. are extremely homophobic or associate with extreme homophobes. When the GOP can shed more of these people as well as the creeps in Washington, we'll all be better off as a nation.

gmginsfo:
Yeah, re-read the article too. But for the two GOP votes for the measure, it wouldn't have passed. And one of those GOPers had opposed it earlier but changed his mind, which is the thrust of what I've been saying here all along, whether you "are yet to see it" or not.

Munson Man:
Dade and Broward regularly vote Democratic, as does Palm Beach County to a lesser degree.

Let's not forget historical perspective here, people. Florida voted for Clinton in 1996, Carter in 1976, Johnson in 1964, Truman in 1948, and FDR won the state 4 times.

gmginsfo:
Follow up to the report of the gay GOPer running in MN: H/WE WON! Too bad I haven't seen this reported elsewhere. Could it be because he's also anti-abortion? Link to story.

Unlike the Democrats, we don't police unanimity on the abortion issue. I've always been strongly pro-choice, for a variety of reasons beyond the simple "woman's right to choose" one, but I've never denied the anti-abortionists their right to make their views known. I learned that the opposite approach - stifling dissent from within - doesn't work during my former, darker days as a Demo. But that was then, this is now, and soon it'll be the first Wednesday in November. Hurry the Day!

Follow up to the report of the gay GOPer running in MN: H/WE WON! Too bad I haven't seen this reported elsewhere. Could it be because he's also anti-abortion? Link to story.

A young rising star in the Republican Party has boasted to witnesses of his sexual relationship with Charlie Crist, the frontrunner in the Florida governor's race who has repeatedly denied that he is gay.

The GOP staffer, 21-year-old Jason Wetherington, told friends at separate social functions in August that he had sex with Crist, according to two credible and independent sources who heard Wetherington make the claim first-hand.

Wetherington, who recently worked as a field director for U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris and currently works for state representative Ellyn Bodganoff's reelection campaign, also named a man whom he said is Crist's long-term partner, a convicted thief named Bruce Carlton Jordan who also recently worked for Harris in her long-shot Senate bid.

Jordan made headlines recently when the Miami Herald learned that the felon was working as Harris's travel aide. The newspaper noted that Jordan, 42, was reported to be close friends with Charlie Crist, whom he convinced to attend an annual Florida Funeral Directors Association meeting in 2003.

Jordan was charged in 2003 with stealing thousands of dollars from two organizations for whom he worked, including the Tallahassee-based Florida Funeral Directors Association, where he served as executive director. He completed a 60-day jail sentence in February and will be on probation until the year 2011, according to state records.

When the Herald questioned Crist about Jordan this past August, the frontrunner in the governor's race told the newspaper that he doesn't remember the man. "I don't know who Bruce Jordan is," he said at the time. "It doesn't mean I haven't met him. I don't know who you are speaking about."

I asked Crist during a phone interview on Monday morning if he had ever had sex with Jordan.

"No," he said. "I don't recall the name."

I also asked him about Wetherington's claim to sources that he'd had sex with Crist. "That's ridiculous," he said. "Completely false."

Then I asked him if he'd ever in his life had sex with a man.

"Never," he said.

Many people aren't convinced that Crist is telling the truth. I am one of them, especially after reporting this column. The source behind the e-mail, who asked that I not reveal his name for fear of retribution, is a gay man, a registered Independent voter and former Republican who isn't involved in Democratic Party politics. He was motivated to tell his story, he says, by his outrage at the Foley scandal.

He recounted a dinner party of four people at a friend's posh waterfront home in Las Olas Isles. He didn't remember the exact date but it took place in early August. He was there with his friend, his friend's partner, and Wetherington.

His friend had struck up a sexual relationship with Wetherington after meeting him in an AOL chat room. Wetherington spoke at the party about working for Katherine Harris's campaign. To me, this was significant since Harris is a stalwart of the Religious Right and openly denounces homosexuality. Wetherington even took a call from Harris after they sat down for cocktails before dinner. "He was like Harris's gay valet," the source said.

As they sipped their drinks, Jason started talking about his relationship with Crist, which he said had been sexual in nature.

"Charlie Crist? Are you kidding?" the source remembers asking.

They asked Jason about the size of Crist's anatomy. Jason "wouldn't go there," said the source. "He said that he remains friendly with Crist and that he was expecting an appointment when Crist becomes governor."

The source said that after the dinner he struggled for a few weeks with what he'd heard. When the Foley scandal hit the news, he called ABC News, which had broken the congressional page story. He said the network had no interest in the story.

Then he contacted me. I learned that Wetherington, a dark-haired and good-looking former page in the state senate, had been Harris's southeast field director and had left the campaign after the primary to work for Bogdanoff.

Wetherington had also appeared in numerous Sun-Sentinel articles. From them, I learned he was an alum of Fort Lauderdale High School, where he was the student body's vice president and the student advisor to the Broward County School Board.

On August 11, 2002, the newspaper published a feature story about Wetherington under the headline: "Leader by example: The school board's student advisor is a take-charge guy with lofty ideals and goals."

In it, Wetherington was very open about his ambition, telling the newspaper, "I'll make it to Washington, whether in the Senate or the White House." His mother said she was certain she would someday be a "First Mom."

The article also mentioned his role as a leader at First Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale. The huge 12,000-member church is one of the more anti-gay institutions in the county and has been aligned with the ultra-conservative Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and its rabidly right-wing minister, D. James Kennedy.

Wetherington appeared to be living a seriously twisted double life. On the one hand, he was a young Christian Republican leader and on the other a cruiser of men in AOL chat rooms.

A videotaped sworn statement has surfaced that bolsters the contention that Florida Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist had a recent romantic relationship with a convicted felon and former travel aide to U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris.

Last week, I reported that 21-year-old GOP staffer Jason Wetherington had claimed to credible sources that he had a sexual relationship with the 50-year-old Crist and had identified the frontrunner's "long-term partner" as Bruce Carlton Jordan, who remains on state probation after serving a 30-day jail sentence for a conviction on grand theft and forgery charges.

Crist has repeatedly denied that he is gay and, with the election looming next week, has recently become more vocal in his stance against adoption by gay couples and in support of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage.

Crist's campaign spokeswoman, Vivian Myrtetus, responded to my questions with an e-mail: "Wild, false rumors like this one are a sad commentary on the politics of personal destruction which is so hurtful to the political process," she wrote. "This is a completely false story from a convicted felon."

Evidence, however, is piling up that he and Jordan, whom the GOP candidate claims not to remember ever having met, had a relationship[b] and that his Republican opponent Tom Gallagher knew about it prior to the September 5 primary vote.

Much of the information surrounding the relationship came, unwittingly and somewhat ironically, from the Harris U.S. Senate campaign, where Jordan worked as the congresswoman's personal travel aide not long after his release from jail in February.

It was while he was employed in that capacity that another traveler on the Harris campaign, Dee Dee Hall, befriended him. In a videotaped statement that I obtained over the weekend, Hall swears that Jordan confided to her that he had an ongoing romantic relationship with Crist.

On the tape, Hall sits in a sharply collared blue blouse and talks about a Fourth of July outing with Harris on the wealthy island enclave of John's Island near Vero Beach.

Hall's attendance at the private party was a perk of traveling with her boyfriend, Jay Vass, who was the pilot for Harris' U.S. Senate campaign at the time.

As the evening wore on, Hall says that she began talking with Jordan, whom she had already befriended on the campaign trail, about romantic relationships. She says she wanted to set up Jordan, whom she knew to be gay, with a friend.

[b]"He said that he was involved with Charlie," she says on the tape after she was sworn in by a court reporter. "I was like, 'OK.' He just stated his first name. He said, 'Maybe you've heard of him.' He said Charlie Crist."

She then asked Jordan what it was like to have a romantic relationship with "such a public figure."

"And he said... Charlie was apparently having some issues with that and trying to keep it under wraps and just trying to deal with it in general, you know," she said, later adding that Jordan seemed troubled that Crist was seeking counseling. "He was kind of quiet about it after that point, like he was concerned about Charlie's decision to seek counseling."