Jim Billman has knocked his
Pennsylvania Statehouse rival, Mark Rozzi, for supporting gay
marriage.
The two businessmen are vying to
replace retiring state Rep. Dante Santoni, a Democrat, whose district
includes parts of Reading.
In a 30-second ad, Billman, a
Republican, claims that most Pennsylvanians would disagree with Rozzi
on the issue of marriage equality.
“For hundreds of years, most
Pennsylvanians have agreed with traditional marriage. But Mark Rozzi
takes another approach,” a female announcer says. “Jim Billman,
as a husband and a father, knows that marriage is between a man and a
woman. He'll support that in the Statehouse.”
As the camera zooms in on a photograph
of a bearded man dressed as a bride with another man in a tuxedo
gently embracing him from behind, the announcer adds: “Mark Rozzi's
view is not quite what marriage is all about.” (The video is
embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
PoliticsPA.com quoted Rozzi as thanking
his rival for the ad.
“Thank you for running an ad showing
people what I support,” he said. “That's fine. He's running ads
like this because he has nothing else to run on.”
“I was born and raised Catholic, and
the nuns and teachers told us to love everybody and welcome everybody
to your group.”
PoliticsPA.com
described Billman's campaign as a “longshot.”