Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts penned an op-ed in an LGBT newspaper suggesting that critical civil rights legislation for the LGBT community that Congress has essentially ignored, like enacting an inclusive ENDA, and repealing the unconstitutional DOMA ban on same-sex marriage recognition are merely “pet projects” that his opponent, Elizabeth Warren, would see as issues on “a checklist of items.” Democrat Elizabeth Warren has come out strongly for civil rights for the LGBT community. A recent poll shows the candidates “deadlocked,” with 26% in the Bay State still undecided.
“I don’t come before you with a checklist of items promising that I will be an advocate for you on each and every one of them. My opponent has already started down that road, promising to support everyone’s pet project. That’s not the way I have ever operated,” Scott Brown, the 52-year old junior United States Senator from Massachusetts and former model wrote in New England’s Bay Windows.
Senator Brown was a leading voice during the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal debate in the Senate, first voting against repeal, then announcing he would vote to repeal the ban on open service for gay military members.
Pointing to his role in the 2010 Senate debate, Scott Brown noted:
I spent months studying the issue, talking to service men and women, including the service chiefs, commanders on the ground as well as listening to testimony. During the process, I kept an open mind. After completing my due diligence and hearing arguments from people on both sides of the issue, I determined that the time had come to repeal the policy.
To me, at the end of the day, it mattered only whether a soldier’s service was performed with competence, honor and dignity, and not whether he or she was gay or straight.
Curiously, Brown, whose Twitter account is very active, did not tweet his op-ed.
Elizabeth Warren in January released an It Gets Better video, whereas Brown last year was the only member of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation absent from their It Gets Better video supporting LGBTQ youth.
Brown, like much of the Republican Party, certainly has a women problem, and has attacked women left and right — Rachel Maddow, for example — even when no battle existed.