May 7, 2009
Tolerable (If Not Completely Tolerant) Sam Blakeslee Replaces Anti-Gay Mike Villines as California Assembly GOP Leader
Not that we much care what the GOP does, as long as they don’t do it in our yard and leave a stinky mess, but it’s nice to know we won’t be hearing so much from the rabidly anti-gay and wildly uninformed Mike Villines (R-Clovis) anymore before he terms out in 2010.
Under pressure from fellow Republicans for not being as anti-tax as they’d like, Villines “resigned” as Republican Assembly leader, and was replaced by Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), who bears a striking resemblance to the elusive Republicanus Moderatus, a rare creature seldom seen since 1964 and often presumed extinct.
For one thing, Blakeslee voted in favor of AB 102, a.k.a. the Name Equality Act, which simplified surname changes for married and domestic partners in California. That’s hardly the greatest milestone in the course of the battle for LGBT equality, but AB 102 was looked upon as a “gay” bill — even though the case that triggered the issue was that of a heterosexual married couple, Michael and Diana Bijon — and Blakeslee bucked his own party to support it.
Only two other Republicans joined him: Roger Niello and Anthony Adams of the generally gay-
Reflecting the bigotry of the other 26 right-wingers who rejected the bill, professional gay-basher Randy Thomasson said:
“This is creating same-sex ‘marriages’ in name by calling two homosexual men ‘Mr. and Mr. Smith’ to give them the honor and appearance of marriage. This violates the spirit of Proposition 22, in which California voters demanded that marriage stay between a man and a woman.”Thomasson also said it’s “wrong” for government to make it easier for men to take their wives’ last names.
“Government needs to encourage men to be stronger fathers who provide for and protect their families,” Thomasson said, “not to be sissy men who abdicate their masculine leadership role because they’re confused.”
Which Sam Blakeslee apparently saw through as the bigoted idiocy it is.
Which, for a Republican, is something.
Unfortunately, Blakeslee voted no on HR5, the state House resolution opposing Proposition 8.
And he’s one of those anti-tax, obstructionist Republicans who make it virtually impossible to negotiate a balanced budget. But so what else is new? At least we don’t expect him to spew any idiotic hate speech about LGBTs in his new, more visible role; he seems far more interested in making his Democratic colleagues look like the sole bad guys in the neverending California budget crisis.
And the guy does have a sense of humor, a quality completely missing from the genetic makeup of hardcore right-wingers. Re Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal’s recent bill proposing that cities be allowed to let cars be parked in either direction on both sides of the street:
Moderate Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo asked: “For those of us who prefer neither being on the right or the left, can we park in the middle of the street?”Not to be outdone, freshman Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, said he supported the bill because, “As you know, in San Francisco we very much appreciate people going both ways.”
And the best thing about Sam Blakeslee? As a relatively (relative to the rest of his party, that is) environmentally-friendly Republican who’s more pro-choice than not, he’s the radical right’s worst nightmare.
If the Dead-Elephant Party really wants to survive its own legacy and laughably desperate scramble to rebrand itself as something other than the party of theocrats, gay-bashers, women-haters, and spendthrift chickenhawks, it will do well to put more Sam Blakeslees out there as its new face.
And it will tell the dying Pat Buchanan set to shut up and go away.
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Filed Under: California, Civil Rights, Democrats, Homophobia, Marriage, Proposition 8, Radical Religious Right, Republicans, Tom Ammiano
