House Speaker John Boehner, a
Republican from Ohio, is supporting openly gay Richard Tisei's bid to
represent the people of Massachusetts' Sixth District.
The 49-year-old Tisei announced in a
2009 Boston Globe interview before he was named Charlie
Baker's gubernatorial running mate that he is gay. Baker was
defeated by Democrat Deval Patrick.
Two years later, Tisei is running for
Congress and he has the backing of House Republican leaders, CNN
reported.
“They just happen to be good
candidates in districts that are winnable for us,” Boehner told
reporters.
Other candidates being helped by the
party include a black woman from Utah and an Indian-American from
California.
“The country's counting on this crop
of candidates to continue the wave that came in in 2010 to change
America, to change Washington,” Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon told the
candidates during a recent meeting.
House Republicans continue to pursue
anti-gay legislation and, at the direction of Boehner, House lawyers
are defending in at least 12 cases the Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA), the 1996 federal law which defines marriage as a heterosexual
union.
(Related: Federal
appeals court: Gay marriage ban DOMA unconstitutional.)
Tisei, a former Massachusetts state
senator, insisted in a CNN interview that his background made him a
good candidate for the title of first openly gay Republican
Congressman.
“Being gay in Massachusetts is no
problem, being a Republican is a little more difficult,” Tisei
said. “In a way I'm well prepared for this, because having come
from Massachusetts I've seen the way that people have shifted over
time.” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.
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