It should shock nobody to learn that Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan and early Mike Huckabee supporter, is not particularly gay-friendly and so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that he would be targeting openly gay candidates in his state:
An activist who opposes gay marriage and same-sex benefits for public employees is trying to raise sexual orientation as an issue in a state House race.
Gary Glenn sent an e-mail Friday to supporters and the media targeting openly gay Democrat Garnet Lewis. Glenn wrote that Lewis is a "homosexual activist with an extremely liberal agenda" not representative of voters in the 98th district, which covers parts of Saginaw and Midland counties.
The e-mail notes Lewis has been endorsed by Michigan Equality, Triangle Pride and other gay rights groups.
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Lewis said she's been open about her sexual orientation, which was mentioned in some media reports as early as this summer. But she said she was disappointed that Glenn would try to make it a campaign issue because it's "old news."
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Glenn was a major backer of the successful 2004 campaign to define marriage as between one man and one woman in the Michigan Constitution. He lives in Midland County and is president of the American Family Association of Michigan and chairman of the Campaign for Michigan Families political action committee.
But it looks like you don’t even have to be gay to be the target of Glenn’s ire - all you need really is to have been in some way associated with a gay rights group:
As the November election approaches, a group claiming to promote Michigan families is renewing a campaign that attacks an Allegan County judge for his ties to homosexual groups.
The Campaign for Michigan Families, a political action committee, plans to run 60-second radio spots on Judge William Baillargeon's background. The spots are to air on five West Michigan radio stations.
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The radio campaign attacking Baillargeon comes after the Campaign for Michigan Families, chaired by Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan, sponsored a round of recorded phone calls to voters about Baillargeon before the August primary.
The robo-calls featured essentially the same message as the radio ads, touting Baillargeon's past service on the board of advisers for the Detroit-based Triangle Foundation, which serves the gay and lesbian community, and asking voters if Baillargeon can be trusted to uphold "our values, given his background."
Baillargeon says that his relationship to the Triangle Foundation “was limited to having his name placed on a ‘resource list’ so that the group could refer legal questions to him,” but apparently that was enough to get Glenn to question “his values” and seek his defeat.
