Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Pryor, who has refused to voice support for same-sex marriage, just lost re-election.
Mark Pryor, the U.S. Senator for the state of Arkansas, just lost his seat to radical religious right Republican Tom Cotton.
Pryor had the curious distinction of being one of only two Democratic Senators to not support same-sex marriage. He is joined in the category by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.
Arkansas native and prolific LGBT activist and blogger Jeremy Hooper shared these thoughts Tuesday night via Twitter:
While Cotton’s beliefs are far to the right of Pryor’s – Pryor did voice support for ENDA – a local Arkansas reporter and highly-credible blogger Max Brantley last year said Pryor is “Worse than Tom Cotton on gay rights.”
As Politico noted, he’s among the red state senators with re-election battles who’ve been dancing around, if not running directly against, the growing national tide of greater tolerance toward the country’s sexual minority. And the Arkansas House yesterday whooped through a resolution in support of gay discrimination (but not even Republicans demanded a roll call for election year use and nays were audible and many, on top of the wonderful Deborah Ferguson’s impassioned speech.)
But get a load of this tiny slice of the D-G reporting:
Rep. Tom Cotton, a Republican, denied an interview request.
“He doesn’t have a lot to say on that topic,†said his spokesman, Caroline Rabbit.
And now our senator, potentially facing a match with Cotton next year:
Michael Teague, a spokesman for Sen. Mark Pryor, the delegation’s only Democratic member, said Pryor had a “moral belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.†He said that he didn’t know the “ultimate†answer, but that he believed that homosexuality is a choice, not a characteristic people are born with.
Marriage is one thing. Advancing the non-reality-based argument of the worst sorts of bigots that homosexuality is a “lifestyle” choice is something else entirely.
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