Green plays the gay card

I suppose it was inevitable. I just hope this blows up in his face.

Green claims he hasn't seen the anti-gay piece and won't comment on it, but it is from his campaign, not some outside group.

That means Mark Green is responsible for it. The buck stops with him, not Steve King or Juliane Appling or James Dobson. This is Mark Green himself bashing gays.

The Capital Times:

Green flier: Wisconsin is not San Francisco
It rips Doyle on benefits for gays, unwed couples

By David Callender and Judith Davidoff, Capital Times, November 3, 2006

Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Mark Green is accusing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle of "sweeping aside the importance of family and marriage" by advocating domestic partner benefits for state employees.

"Why should taxpayers pay for the benefits of gay and lesbian partners or of unmarried opposite sex partners?" Green asks in a four-page campaign mailing to voters. "It's Jim Doyle's style - special deals for the few, while the rest of Wisconsin pays the bill."

The glossy, full-color brochure arrived in mailboxes as Doyle and Green began the final countdown to next Tuesday's election.

The mailing appears aimed at voters who are already likely to head to the polls in support of a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages and civil unions. Green supports the amendment; Doyle does not.

The brochure features a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge superimposed on a field of cows grazing and claims that "some things from San Francisco just don't fit in Wisconsin. Jim Doyle's liberal agenda is one of them."

Green said he hadn't seen the brochure and refused to comment on its contents during a campaign stop in Madison on Thursday.

Green spokesman Mike Prentiss said that the brochure is consistent with Green's opposition to domestic partnership benefits for both gay and lesbian couples and unmarried heterosexual couples.

He denied, however, that the mailing was implicitly anti-gay in its reference to San Francisco, a city known for being gay-friendly.

Prentiss said the reference is intended to remind voters of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whose district includes San Francisco. Neither Pelosi's name nor her image appears anywhere in the brochure.

Doyle spokeswoman Melanie Fonder called the brochure "another piece of trash from the Green campaign. That's where it will end up in most cases - in the trash. This is more of the same from him - designed to divide people."