Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum
has lost his bid to be the GOP's nominee for governor, the AP
reported. Republicans instead elected to give newcomer Naples
businessman Rick Scott a try.
The defeat ends 24 years of public
service for McCollum.
The 66-year-old politician made
headlines in May when ex-gay
leader George Rekers of North Miami was exposed by the Miami
New Times
as having hired a male prostitute off the pageviews of gay website
RentBoy.com.
As attorney general, McCollum defended
Florida's outright ban on gay adoption and personally urged the state
to hire Rekers to testify as an expert witness. Rekers was paid
$120,000 for his testimony.
In the waning days of the campaign,
Scott turned the Rekers scandal to his advantage. In a flyer paid
for by Scott's committee Let's Get to Work, he attacks McCollum for
hiring Rekers.
“Bill McCollum wasted our money and
showed poor judgment,” the flyer says.
While admitting that Rekers was a poor
choice in hindsight, McCollum has denied that the scandal has
compromised the state's case, which is currently on appeal after a
district judge struck down the law.
“And it's unfortunate that all this
publicity has come up over it, but the lawsuit, I think, is on sound
ground and we're carrying it forward,” he told the Florida
Baptist Press.
McCollum has publicly stated his
opposition to all gay parenting.
“I really do not think that we should
have homosexuals guiding our children,” he said. “I think that
it's a lifestyle that I don't agree with.”
Gay adoption has also leaked into the
campaigns of other high-profile races.
Sharron
Angle, the GOP nominee challenging Nevada Senator Harry Reid, said
last week that she opposes protections based on sexual orientation
and gay adoption.
Karen Handel, a Republican running for
governor of Georgia, recently
said she would sign a bill that bans gay and lesbian couples from
adopting children.