Sunday, August 16, 2015

Blackmail and the Lansing mafia

Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, both Republicans, joined the Michigan House back in January. They have teamed up to offer a succession of anti-gay bills, even outdoing Gary Glenn, who used to head the American Family Association in Michigan and was the author of Michigan's marriage protection amendment. So, yeah, Gamrat and Courser, Tea Party darlings, are quite a pair.

It seems they are a pair in another sense. They've been having an affair with each other. Recently the story got bizarre. And confusing. Courser sensed their affair was about to be exposed. So he concocted an email to be sent anonymously that accused Courser of being a porn-addicted sex deviant who paid for gay sex. He asked an aide to send the email out to all the Republicans in Lansing. The aide refused. Courser did it himself.

Eventually someone figured out the anonymous sender was Courser. He then tried to claim he sent it out in an attempt to ward off blackmail by the "Lansing mafia." That didn't work. He finally said he did it to "inoculate" himself. Something about if he was accused of paying for gay sex and that was proven false then a little affair wouldn't sound so bad.

The Michigan GOP is asking for both of them to resign. The case against Courser is he attempted to use state money (his aide) as part of his cover-up. The case against Gamrat appears to only be her association with Courser. She might survive the scandal. His future is less certain.

As I said, this scandal is confusing. What I laid out here is what I quickly pieced together from a pair of reports in Between the Lines. But it is nice to see those who portray themselves as extra holy are shown to be just as sinful.

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