This man is pathetic…and any gay man or lesbian who knew is just as pathetic.
And just as much in need of a good ass kicking.  

Time for some counter-smack

The Californian decided that Ashburn’s sexuality wasn’t “relevant.”  The unnamed Sacramento paper apparently did too and never published.

Can anyone do some quick research into whether either (unnamed? Might that one’s name begin with B(ee)?) ever considered any other (read: liberal) politician’s sexual doings to be “relevant”?  

That hypocrisy apparently didn’t bother Mayor Cabaldon enough to actually fucking say something. And you know that if Cabaldon knew, many other queers in Sacramento knew.

Time for phonecall party to put the question to all Federal Club members east of Oakland?

This is me copying-and-pasting, but …Here’s why this nonsense is particularly demoralizing for some of us:

These kinds of shenanigans reek of privilege and leave allies shaking their heads wondering why they even bother.  Of course, as allies, we know why we bother:  because we know, as Americans, that our principles are calling us to relegate anti-LGBT discrimination to the trash heap of our history.  
At least we thought they were, until characters like Ashburn make the headlines and the story comes out that everybody who was anybody apparently already knew all along, and played along.  
Suddenly the issue becomes not sexual orientation, not who wants to get married or serve in the military, but rather when and how did an asshat like Ashburn suddenly become so deserving of special treatment?  
No doubt, it was probably the same day he figured out that he could play the rubes for fools and count on his peers in the local press as accomplices.

I’m new to this, so excoriate me if I’m out of line, but I’ll admit to feeling, on and off, all during Prop 8 and many times since, that there’s something rotten in Denmark that explains the lack of progress on issues that look to me like no-brainers, but somehow wind up on the country’s back burners.  
Or has it always been … “The Boys of Boise” in ’55 … “The Boys of Sacramento” in ’10 … and if so, I’ve been a fool since ’08, haven’t I?

This is precicely WHYMichelangelo Signorile got so much bullshit in the ’90′s from gay/lesbian people who didn’t think outing was ‘productive’. That’s ridiculous. OF COURSE it’s productive-outing got closeted shits like this out in PUBLIC. That’s what is needed-the more anti-Gay gay men like this have to answer for his views, the more the anti-Gay ‘industry’ looks like the fools they really are. I can’t believe anyone would protect this guy’s closet. WTF? Do we want equality or DON’T we?  

“Michelangelo Signorile got so much bullshit in the ’90′s from gay/lesbian people who didn’t think outing was ‘productive’.”They’re the same ones who – even now – think that the ‘internets’ isn’t, and that we should leave our lives in the hands of purple-n-yellow black tie dinner attendees and purple-n-yellow black tie dinner attendees alone.

Sure it’s relevant

Even with a 100% anti-gay voting record, along with organizing family values demonstrations to protect the sanctity of marriage.

You know, I can almost buy Ashburn’s whole “I was elected to represent a conservative district, so voted anti-gay” schtick, and that therefore his sexuality isn’t relevant, IF the anti-gay movement weren’t so rooted in fearmongering. It is one thing to claim that your support straight marriage only, it is quite another to claim that gays and lesbians are threats to the very fabric of society and want to destroy our cultue. Once the rhetoric goes there – and it always does with the anti-gay hatemongers – Ashburn’s sexuality becomes very relevant. It’s a case of “really, Senator? Are you a threat to society?”
The media, sadly is still all to willing to buy the crap that calling someone gay, even when there is ample evidence, is an insult. That is an attitude we have to change.  

Kapo [kah-poh]-nouna Nazi concentration camp prisoner who was given privileges in return for ‘supervising’ other prisoners. Often brutal to other prisoners.

Indeed, I think that’s the question …This Ashburn episode takes me back to August of ’08, to an anecdotal tidbit re the kind of crap that I consciously chose to ignore back then on random ex-Mormon forums:

Sometimes I wish I didn’t live in the Bay Area. Even out in the burbs which are tres Christian, and even among Bay Area Republicans, Prop 8 is losing big. No one in the 9 county area gives a flying shit about Teh Gehs getting hitched, so I have nowhere to put all my activist energy. Oh well, back to my self-absorbed Bay Area navel-gazing…

Followed by:

I like the bay area cause I can be lazy in my activism. Its already being done!

At this point, we all know what that laziness accomplished, don’t we?  And I guess I should be angry.
But I’m not.  Not really.  I have too much respect for the good folks here and elsewhere who did commit their time to the good fight.  
But let’s be honest: Ashburn is less a surprise than he is a rank piece of random dirty laundry that either gets a full airing or the stink is just gonna linger that much longer …

Which is why I stopped giving the black tie dinner attendeesMY money. HRC is useless. Everyone knows it-all you have to do is see what Clive Jones did with the latest March on Washington. He was able to show the DC folks what the Internet could do-WITHOUT the support of HRC.  

Not a valid comparisonNazi analogies are over-used in political discourse and this is a good example.  Kapos weren’t hiding their identity as they brutalized or persecuted others, and they were picked by the camp officials to do their work, while this guy was elected.  

This should help us in the Prop 8 trial if they want to scream the judge is biasedLord knows we’re got a whole slew of anti-gay rights gay-themselves politicians to point to to show the Appeals Court that being gay doesn’t mean they’ll automatically side with the gays.

I’ve been saying it for yearsand it bear repeating now: Our worst enemies are not straight.  The moment we forget that, we start to lose.

Campaign to expose these hypocritesMaybe we need a national campaign to encourage people to expose these
Gay Hypocrites Only Serving Themselves. The campaign slogan could be:
Who you gonna call? GHOSTbusters!
Even the original theme-song could be easily adapted.
The slogan could be followed by a link to Mike Rogers’ website: blogActive.
And encourage everyone to see the movie, Outrage.

Reporting on hypocrisy ……is a function of what media is supposed to do.
This legislator’s sexual orientation became fair game — and should have been reported on by the press that was aware of his sexual orientation — when he voted against all legislation that was contrary to LGBT civil rights.
*Shakes head.*

Eep! Godwin’s Law Alert!
The other take on Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies is the actual observation by Mike Godwin back in 1990:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

As the Wikipedia entry for Godwin’s Law elaborates…

Godwin’s Law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one’s opponent) with Hitler or Nazis or their actions.

No TOS violation here, but Nazi and Hitler analogies really, really don’t win an argument. Heck, most of us, when seeing ‘em, just roll our eyes.

The word you want is QuislingFrom the Wikipedia:

Quisling, coined after Vidkun Quisling, who assisted Nazi Germany to conquer his own country and ruled the collaborationist Norwegian government, is a term used to describe traitors and collaborators. It was most commonly used for fascist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.

I would say that describes Representative Ashburn perfectly.

Well I just have to shrug this one off. I just can’t get mad about it.California deal switch this in all of its major cities and plenty of its high profile smaller communities. I think its just the mere fact that there is a do unto others/ you can lead a horse to water/ let them hang themselves given enough rope kind of thing. I don’t believe most Californians see the health in making other people’s sexuality news unless it links to something.  And frankly given the size and scope of the California government one or two senators is definitely going to go unnoticed in both the North and the South.
But no excuses for this guy and none for us Californians I suppose but seriously don’t expect much to change. Gay straight or bi it just seems more important to most Californians I think that every person be allowed to state their own sexuality and if that means it comes out in scandal then so bee it.  

Public figure or not…He’s still a human being.  Each and every one of us has had to (or known someone who has had to) struggle with coming out and all the other social baggage and sexual politics surrounding being an lgbt-identified person.
When I look at Roy now, I don’t see a hypocrite.  I see a man who was probably as much a victim of hate as any of us.  Yes, he dealt with it differently, but that’s true of all victims.  We process the violence done to us in different ways.  Some of us get angry and curse the darkness.  Some of us get afraid (like Roy) and end up trying to appease the darkness and the hate.  Some of us keep hopeful and try to be lights in the darkness to guide the way forward.  And far too many of us surrender to the darkness completely and destroy ourselves in the process.
Getting angry at Roy is somewhat akin to getting angry at victims of domestic abuse who choose to stay with their abusers and ignore the problem.  He’s making the wrong choices, but right now he needs our compassion and acceptance (and forgiveness) much more than he needs our righteous anger.

Sorry, but that’s a crock of shit n/t

Who cares what he needs.He’s harmed more people with his politics than he can ever be forgiven for.  F*(k him.  I hope his life goes into the crapper.

Cursing the darkness does not make it go away.

How does that help anyone?

Guys! This is important!Everyone, please:
STOP HAVING SEX WITH THESE HYPOCRITES!
If every gay or bi male would stop fooling around with these hypocritical bastards, they’d stop voting against us.
Having sex with them is ENABLING our own oppression. STOP IT. There are plenty of other men to mess around with who ARE NOT trying to strip us of our most basic rights.
Cut them off at the source!

The “I support straight marriage only” is akin to I support “intra-racial marriage” only It is a very anti-american view of the world.  Once Lawrence v. Texas came down, there is no rational arguement to deny the “Americaness” of Americans. IMO, Immigration policy, ENDA, DADT can all be subject to rational policy debate.  Marriage Equality cannot.  You are either an American Citizen, or your not.  

Now you’ve got me on a Clare Boothe Luce kick …Although she was mostly depressingly realistic in her outlook …

There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown helpless about them.
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable.

… She was not immune to bouts of idealism:

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.

Nobody forced him to run for office.Yes he is a human being and we can have compassion for anyone who has internalized a social bias.  However, he chose to run for office and in so doing took on a serious responsibility to all the other human beings in his district which he is unable/unwilling to fulfill.  My compassion ends when such people enter public service to do harm.

You might just want to considerthat the idea is not to “help anyone” but to trash this damned weasel.  
That aside, are you seriously arguing that we should not do everything we can to stop people from hurting us?  This bastard has done immeasurable harm to our community, and all the other political hypocrites like him are still doing so.  Maybe you could explain to us how defending them “helps anyone.”

And nobody forced him to cast all his anti-gay votes.There are any number of Republicans who are pro-gay or at least moderate on our issues, yet who have had long, healthy political careers.  Ashburn chose–made a deliberate choice–to vote the way he did.

Spare me the BSThis guy chose to align himself with the anti-gay types and the Radical Religionists, period.

Your analogy would only be accurate if those victims of domestic abuse were not only staying with their abusers but…
also passing laws that forced other victims to stay with theirs.  
There is absolutely NOTHING that this man, who is ACTIVELY inflicting hate and LEGAL bias against other gays, has to do with victims of domestic violence who stay with their abusers and ONLY hurt themselves.
You should be ashamed of yourself for comparing domestic violence victims with a man who consciously CHOSE to not only be in the closet but to run for office to be in a position, and then actually using that position, to make the lives of out gay people hell.
SHAME ON YOU!

Let’s make some fair, realistic distinctions hereSexual orientation does not obligate one to a certain course of action.  Just like being born an American doesn’t mean I will automatically do everything that conforms to someone else’s view of America, Roy’s clearly not conforming to our view of what a gay politician ought to be.
But that’s the problem here.  Yes, he voted against my rights and those of my fellow lgbt friends.  (By the way, I don’t think
As to failed analogies, I at least qualified mine with a “somewhat.”  You’ve directly equated a vote (albeit one against progress) with making people’s lives hell.  He doesn’t make our lives hell.  We do.  Remember Eleanor Roosevelt’s words: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Oh, and by the way, you sound rather like my homophobic evangelical mother when you say “SHAME ON YOU!”  In fact, you’re sounding a lot like the people who would oppress us.  Thanks for tolerating an alternate view on the situation though.  That was very mature of you.

So tell me then…What good does all this self-righteous “He’s a hypocrite, how dare he!” fury do?

You don’t have to be closeted to Internalize homophobiaThat’s what his protectors prove.  

We all make choices…I’m not excusing his bad choices.  Like I said, he’s (out of fear, most likely) been acting to appease the darkness.  But none of us have lived his life or walked in his footsteps.  I honestly wonder how many of us are like me, coming from a strongly homophobic, evangelical, conservative family.
But look, some people don’t shake off the homophobia, evangelical beliefs, or conservatism when they realize they’re gay.  Some people take a long time to do it.  Getting angry at him because you think he’s some kind of traitor to gay people is particularly ridiculous.
And that’s what’s wrong with this article.  ”Homo-collusionists” and “heinous”?  Please.  Pam sounds just like the talibangelicals here.  I expected a more rational response from her than bloodthirst and hate-filled rhetoric.  

edit for clarity:Second paragraph should read:
But that’s the problem here.  Yes, he voted against my rights and those of my fellow lgbt friends.  (By the way, I don’t think that a vote against us is necessarily a work of hate.  Even from Roy.  To paraphrase: never ascribe to malice that which can be attributed to ignorance.)

Re: The flood of replies I’ve gotten.You might want to re-read my original comment.  In it, I very clearly acknowledge that Roy Ashburn made deliberate (and bad) choices.
Reactions like Pam’s and the vast majority of responses to my comment are only going to reinforce Roy’s fear.  After all, he won’t likely be open to coming out to us with open arms and changing his tune if we’re frothing and screaming for his head.
But you want revenge.  You want to curse the darkness.  Fine.  It won’t help the movement, and it costs us a chance at helping him.  But satisfy your petty desires for revenge.  It’s about as short-sighted as his kow-towing to the morally deficient selective readers of scripture that conspired to enshrine second-class citizenship in our state constitution.
Apparently asking people to forgive their enemies and try to understand them is a crime here.  I believe in those things (forgiveness and understanding) and try to adhere to them in my own human (and inevitably imperfect) fashion.  I’m sorry for inconveniencing your revenge fantasies with thoughts of compassion.

A deterrent to other closeted gay politicians……that behave in the same way. Better for them to leave office than to be exposed as sexual and political hypocrites.
And again, one of the main functions of media is to expose hypocrisy in public figures. He was, as a politician, a public figure who engaged in hypocritical behavior. Media should have exposed him for his hypocrisy long ago.

How does this line of reasoning not end with…All closeted gay people we disagree with being subject to outing and shaming and as much pain as we can inflict on them?

we’re only talking about closeted people in positions of authority who use their power or authority to actively work to make life hell for LGBT people.  as far as i am concerned, closeted people not in that category should be left alone.  i find it interesting that you’re more concerned with this one guy than you are with the countless citizens he has helped keep second class and the messages of anti-gay hate he has broadcast into the hearts of other gay people.

Why did the press cover for Ashburn?Well, the press in California spent decades covering for gay and lesbian movie stars (and directors and producers …), so it’s just natural for them to reflexively go blind pig on a politician.  

Forgiving enemiesDid he ask for our forgiveness?
As for this revenge business, stop misrepresenting what people are saying.  When you use unfounded, broad-brush statements, you immediately lose the argument.  You also skate in thin ice regarding the blog’s terms of service.

I wonder if this is a “the press” question really,or if it has more to do with specific editorial staff at the papers in his district.

Way to misrepresentmy position.  Concern for him doesn’t mean I can’t be or am not concerned for other second class citizens.
It’s just this thirst to bring people down is not really productive to the cause.

I’m not misrepresenting at all… from the replies I received, this is in no small part about revenge:“Who cares what he needs.
He’s harmed more people with his politics than he can ever be forgiven for.  F*(k him.  I hope his life goes into the crapper.”
by: Mad4Maddow @ Fri Mar 05, 2010 at 11:36:49 AM PST
“You might just want to consider
that the idea is not to “help anyone” but to trash this damned weasel.”
by: QScribe @ Fri Mar 05, 2010 at 12:37:56 PM PST
I don’t think intentions get much clearer than those expressed in both of the comments I’ve just quoted.
I honestly think the scarier part is this snap-judgement to label other gays as “homo-collusionists.”  Simply because they didn’t rat out the man.  It’s clearly not occurred to some lgbt bloggers that expecting folks to throw their friends or colleagues under the bus might be a little unrealistic.  
Yeah Roy’s cast votes we disagree with.  And yet none of his votes have actually made an impact anyways.  We’ve had Democratic control of the California State Senate for some time now, and easily enough leeway to surmount his one vote.  Roy Ashburn has not made our lives hell.  Hate, anger, ignorance, and fear are the forces we fight.  
What I see here is a lot of anger from our end over the injustice we face day-after-day.  And it’s all being heaped on Roy Ashburn and the people who failed to betray his trust.

But has he asked for forgiveness?As for your main thesis, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.

I don’t know if the mystery paper was The Bee…But they did publish this story the other day, but only as a small sidebar, and the COMPLETELY OMITTED THE GAY ANGLE.  We live just outside Sacramento, and never heard of this guy, so the entire gay community here didn’t know he was gay.  And the Bee is generally a liberal paper.  So it’s surprising (to me) that they aren’t running with this.
There was a study a few years back where they showed gay people and self-confessed homophones pictures of half naked men.  And guess what?  The homophobes had just as strong a sexual response to the pictures as the gay men did.
The enemy, indeed, is us.

Outting ThemMike Rogers has been called the “most powerful man in Washington” because he has outed so many of these self-loathing legislators.  They hate themselves so they run the most oppressive legislation there is against gays.
Legislators are different from the population at large. These people have the power and position to affect peoples lives. If they are living a lie they should be exposed for it.  You as citizens do not have the power politicians have.  So trying to compare outing a guy who tells his co-workers he is straight is different than outing a politician.
With the history of Republican anti-LGBT politicians it might be worth following a few of the most virulent anti-Gay politicians to see where they are hanging out.  Proactive disclosure is important to our lives, including saving our lives.

It /is/ productive.As Autumn said, it serves as a deterrent to other closeted LGBT persons in positions of power to not screw over your own.
By the way, I find it interesting that you called out Lurleen on misrepresenting your position right after you misrepresented Autumn’s position.

I’m sorry…… but telling out-and-proud LGBT persons that it’s our own fault that people are voting against our rights is just wrong. It’s people like you and him that are the problem. You defend reprehensible actions and tell us that we should stand by and do nothing (or worse, hold his hand) effectively giving the green light for this to happen again.
Your Roosevelt quote is nonsense; it’s not a “feeling” that’s at issue, but actual government recognized benefits and rights as well as the right to not be discriminated outside of public institutions (as in not losing your job). No amount of imagination is going to magically make that happen. (And if it were so true, then it wouldn’t matter how much we criticize this guy since we then couldn’t make him feel inferior without his consent anyway.)
The “SHAME ON YOU!” quote is also nonsense. If I’m not mistaken, Hillary Clinton made the same statement. It doesn’t say anything about how homophobic a person is. Please, just stop making stuff up.

I don’t see any reason…… to welcome this man with open arms. If he wants to try and make amends (by becoming, say, an advocate), there’s nothing stopping him (and maybe he’ll get some forgiveness). Just saying your sorry after such actions isn’t going to cut it.
What damage he’s done with his anti-LGBT stances he probably won’t have a chance to ameliorate though if he represents an anti-gay, conservative district. As soon as he makes a pro-gay vote, he’s out of office (if he isn’t already merely for being gay) and if he makes more anti-gay votes there’s even more reason to hate him.

As for that last line…how can this P.O.S. be “ignorant” of the plight of a group to which he apparently belongs?  Oh, wait: PRIVILEGE.
People like you, jdblue82, seem to think that no one is ultimately responsible for his or her own behavior; rather, there’s always some mitigating factor that must be taken into account.  If that’s the case, why even bother to hold anyone to any standard?  Let’s just revel in our second-class citizenship as Ashburn and his ilk smash the soles of their boots into our faces, pitying them as they do so.

When did I sayit’s our fault people are voting against us?
It is, however, our responsibility to overcome the hate.  History has shown that to typically be more successful for movements that embrace tolerance and love as core values, rather than responding in kind with more hate.

You don’t get it…Hating him makes us just as bad as him.  Trashing him makes us just as bad as the homophobes.  We’re sinking to their level.
We can and should be better than that.

I don’t believethat’s a misrepresentation to say that using outing as a weapon can be taken too far.
The thing about “deterrents” (whether you’re talking about political nukes or real ones) is that it’s way tougher to de-escalate after you’ve already fired one off.

Your QuestionPersonally, I don’t believe it necessary to wait until a person has appropriately debased themselves before they’re worthy of forgiveness.
It’s a lot harder in practice than it is to yammer about it though, so I want to be clear that I’m not putting myself up as a paragon of forgiving virtue.  But seriously, what’s the harm in forgiving the man?
At worst, he continues to be the self-loathing homophobe, and we lose nothing.
Forgiveness, mind you, doesn’t mean letting people walk all over you.  That’s a point I think most of the commenters have missed.

So then the answer is “no”?

A confirmed NOAshburn says he’ll keep voting anti-gay if he thinks the bigots in his district want him to.

Processing

Yes, he dealt with it differently, but that’s true of all victims.  We process the violence done to us in different ways.

That point is hard to quarrel with in the abstract (yes, different people do respond differently to any given stimulus).  But it breaks down when you try to apply it to Ashburn in particular.  Among all of the different ways to process our experiences of a homophobic world, how many of us really choose his way?  And somewhere up the scale, don’t we eventually decide that for purposes of moral critique and social sanction, the (objective) negative real-world effects of someone’s behavior trump any (subjective) purported root causes for the behavior?  (E.g., say all you want about the childhood psychological trauma experienced by a violent criminal – we’re still going to toss him in jail).
Closeting himself, I understand.  I personally believe it’s an unfortunate decision, but not a monstrous one, as it affects primarily his own life.  Any effects on others are somewhat ill-defined and remote (a general coarsening of the environment for LGBTQI acceptance / failure fully to realize our political power).  But I don’t think our compassion needs to extend as far as giving someone a free pass for actively undermining queer people’s efforts to secure basic legal rights – for participating in a movement that seeks to deny even our basic humanity.
In other words, stay in the closet if you like, but don’t throw the rest of us under the bus.

I don’t understand…people like you, jd.  Yeah, I can see how it might look good on us to “take the high road,” as you’d probably call it, but here in the harsh light of day of the real world, it’s just not practical to be that idealistic.  In fact, it’s often detrimental to movements like ours.  Take a lesson from the Democrats.  They’re the party that always wants to be friends and make nice.  They always try to appease the Republicans, and it gets them NOWHERE.  (Just look at the healthcare reform debacle.)  The Republicans don’t follow suit when the hand is extended to them–rather, they bite it.  Your high-minded pragmatism would only work in a world wherein our opponents still possess a sense of honor to which we can appeal.  Sadly, that is not the the political climate in which we must now operate.
Further, I can’t comprehend what you really hope to accomplish by encouraging us all to sit back and let a dickhead like Ashburn just “do  his thing.”  Perhaps we should simply slap his wrist and wag our collective finger, like some Eighteenth Century schoolmarm?   All while this hypocrite of hypocrites continues to vote away the rights of people who are just like himself, only less privileged or well connected?
It may very well be that your method can be effective.  But it would take valuable time.  Time that many of us don’t have.  Time that some of us, frankly, are no longer wiling to fritter away by indulging obstructionist, knuckle-dragging, self-loathing  closet cases.  I, for one, want change in my lifetime, not at a glacial pace.  And letting Ashburn off the hook easily is NOT going to accomplish that change anytime soon.

Yes, it was a misrepresentation.The statement is true on it’s face, but not what Autumn was actually posting about; you greatly exaggerated her position then decided to argue against your exaggerated position instead of her more moderate position.
Specifically, her position had nothing to do with outing every gay person we “disagree with”. It had to do with outing closeted LGBT persons in positions of power who hypocritically attack the interests of their own LGBT constituents (and, regardless of who voted him into office, he’s still obligated to look after the interests of the LGBT citizens’ whom he represents).
You wrote:
“The thing about “deterrents” (whether you’re talking about political nukes or real ones) is that it’s way tougher to de-escalate after you’ve already fired one off.”
Why would we want to de-escalate? We want the deterrent to be high and to remain high for this behavior forever. As it is, it apparently wasn’t high enough since Ashburn has indicated that he will continue to vote hypocritically.
Not to mention that I don’t see why it would be so so hard to “de-escalate” and offer forgiveness for someone that’s decided to make an apology followed by substantive amends for their actions.
(This man hasn’t done any of that. He made an apology, but to the wrong people. In this case, substantive amends would have been (A) an apology to the local LGBT community in tandem with (B1) a promise to correct his bad voting behavior or (B2) immediate resignation. Then this should be followed by (C) efforts to curb the bad practices that he encouraged either through advocacy or material assistance.
People that want to sit by and say “I did all these bad things. Please, please, forgive me. However, I won’t be doing anything to right all the wrongs I’ve done.” don’t deserve forgiveness IMO.)

You said it right here:“You’ve directly equated a vote (albeit one against progress) with making people’s lives hell. [Ashburn] doesn’t make our lives hell.  We do.” –jdblue82
He made votes that perpetuate the problems that make our lives hell. However, you claimed that this action isn’t his fault at all; somehow it’s our fault.
Right. After all, we, of the out LGBT community, forced him to vote the way we didn’t want so he should be absolved of all responsibility. /sarcasm off
–
It is our responsibility to attempt to overcome hate only insofar as it is to see justice. Moreso, it is the responsibility of the instigators–the haters–including hypocritical self-haters like Ashburn–to not perpetuate hate. Each person should be culpable for their individual actions, yet you seem to be looking for every possible reason to say that what this detestable guy did deserves no scorn and that somehow this is all the LGBT’s fault. (Seriously, one has to wonder if you’re even part of that community. I’ve had to frequently deal with religionists making this argument who pose as friends even while they attack.)
No matter how you look at it, hate is not the LGBT community’s at large’s fault nor should this responsibility be assigned primarily to that community. You don’t pin the blame on the persecuted for not doing everything possible to stop the persecution. This is the exact same logic used by all the people blaming Constance for the school board’s decision to cancel the prom: someone how the persecuted are to blame for their own persecution even when they try to call out the persecutors.

Just for the sake of saying it…http://www.towleroad.com/2010/…
Gee, seems like I was right about him after all.

It only took until July…for him to turn around and start voting pro-lgbt.  I wonder whether it would have taken him longer had the lgbt media followed your strategy and lambasted the man.  Deserving of it or not, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  It’s not letting him off the hook, it’s co-opting him into the movement, that concerns me the most.  And, fwiw, people like Courage Campaign and EQCA were willing to extend the olive branch, which is perhaps why those groups have been so effective.

See, the thing you’re uncomprehending of…Is that your strategy isn’t really a deterrent.  It’s been in use for decades now, and hasn’t seemed to minimize the number of closeted politicians.
Think of it this way:  you’re a (hypothetical) closeted politician.  We already are pretty sure which party you’re represented by, and we’re pretty definite that you’re either a social conservative, or you play one on TV for the votes.  Either way, you’ve chosen this route because you’re afraid of a significant number of people (i.e. voters) who will disapprove (and subsequently vote you out) if you should admit your sexuality.  I think at this point, fear of losing the loving adoration of the gays isn’t really relevant.
And as for misrepresentations, perhaps I should have clarified the “every gay person we disagree with” statement.  I meant every influential, closeted, gay person we disagree with.”  Thing is, with the context of Autumn’s piece, I’d have thought you’d understand that’s what I meant.