Senator Scott Brown on Tuesday was
honored by gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans, touching off a flurry
of criticism from Massachusetts Democrats.
Brown, a tea party favorite, was among
the 8 Senate Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote with all but
one Democrat to repeal “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” the now ended
military policy which banned gay and bisexual troops from serving
openly.
The Log Cabin Republicans presented
Brown with its Spirit of Lincoln Award because he “has proven
himself to be an ally to our community whose service should be
recognized, and Log Cabin Republicans are proud to call this
warrior-citizen a friend.”
Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair
John E. Walsh disagreed during a conference call on Tuesday.
“Only a Republican party group would
think with his record Scott Brown deserves any kind of reward for
being a champion of equal rights for the LGBT community,” Walsh
said. “The junior senator is and has been a staunch opponent of
equal marriage, he's opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
(ENDA). When he was in the state Legislature he voted three times
for a constitutional amendment to ban equal marriage and opposed
funding for the commonwealth's commission on gay and lesbian youth.”
“And in Scott Brown's campaigns he
has been supported by some of the most virulently anti-gay activists
in Massachusetts,” he added.
Added Stephen Driscoll, who chairs the
Massachusetts Democratic Party's GLBT Caucus: “Once again the Log
Cabin Republicans are barking up the wrong bush. There is no depth
to which they are unwilling to sink in their greed motivated
self-abnegation. Those of us who know Scott Brown's history remember
him as a staunch opponent of gay equality who repeatedly voted
against our community, mocked gay and lesbian parents, and kept
company with the anti-gay hate merchants, handling their
thinly-veiled homophobia here in the commonwealth.