Perhaps is HBO is looking for a sequel to their Taxicab Confessions series, they might want to turn the camera on California State Senator Roy Ashburn, and tweak the title to say "Confessions of a Formerly Anti-Gay Politician." Sen. Ashburn's career in the California legislature was in many parts defined by his hardcore opposition to gay rights legislation. Whether it was marriage or Harvey Milk Day, any piece of legislation that came his way dealing with LGBT rights seemed to get a thumbs down.
And then, in March of this year, Sen. Ashburn was pulled over by police in Sacramento on suspicion that he was drunk behind the wheel. He was, with a blood alcohol level of .14%, at that. But that's not entirely what dominated the headlines the next morning. Instead, it was the fact that Sen. Ashburn was leaving a gay bar in Sacramento when he was arrested, and that he had an unidentified male passenger with him.
Immediately, Sen. Ashburn became part of the "Republican Politicians Against Gay Rights Who Eventually Get Caught Doing Very Gay Things." There's former Rep. Mark Foley, former Sen. Larry Craig, and current Rep. Mark Kirk. And that's not to mention all of the right-leaning pastors and religious leaders who've been involved in some salacious male-on-male scandals in the past few years (Ted Haggard, George Alan Rekers, Alan Downing ... the list goes on).
But what might make Sen. Ashburn different from all of these controversial cats is that instead of running away from his scandal, or blaming his scandal on some internal demons, he seems to be opening up to folks by saying that (1) yes, he's is gay, and (2) he was wrong ... really wrong ... to back anti-gay legislation in the past.
This week Sen. Ashburn wrote a column for gaypolitics.com, where he urged fellow lawmakers in the Republican Party to get behind gay rights. His scandal, he says, woke him up to the reality that unless he starts speaking out as a gay Republican, others in his situation will remain in the closet, and his party won't change one iota on one of the leading civil rights issues of our time.
