Todd Courser's political career goes down in rainbow-colored flames

Todd Courser's political career goes down in rainbow-colored flames

Posted By Michael Jackman on Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 4:15 PM

Nope, he's not gay, but he would rather have you believe he's gay for a moment because you'll be relieved when you learn he's only having an affair with another woman.

Nope, he's not gay, but he would rather have you believe he's gay for a moment because you'll be relieved when you learn he's only having an affair with another woman.


Where do we start? There's just so much juicy goodness to the epic comedown faced by state Rep. Todd Courser, we simply don't know where to begin.

First, the story is so bizarre, so twisted, that the excellent reporting that appeared in today's Detroit News almost seems to read like a lampoon of the famously anti-LGBT Tea Partier. Apparently, Courser hatched a wild scheme to circulate an email alleging that he was a bisexual cruiser who was spotted having gay sex behind a Lansing bar. Why spread such an outrageous story? Because his God-fearing followers would surely be pleased to learn that it was all a lie, and that all Courser was doing was diddling fellow Tea Party legislator Cindy Gamrat. (Makes sense, huh?)

Beyond this flabbergasting story, there's the obvious delight in seeing a screaming homophobe's political career go down in gorgeous, rainbow-colored flames. Courser, who nearly got himself elected chair of the Michigan Republican Party last February, has been a noisy God-botherer, and a font of anti-gay rhetoric to rival Michigan's own Dave Agema. Among other things, the Lapeer accountant and lawyer has claimed that Jesus wanted him to run to save the Republican party, said that he went to law school to preserve the “Christian heritage of America,” and said of gay matrimony, "This can and must be stopped!” Courser's "Gaygate" scandal is a welcome instance of a hypocritical gasbag being punctured, and that fartlike deflating noise you hear is his political life ebbing away.

Of course, it's a teachable moment too: There are millions of decent people who subscribe to spirituality and don't feel the need to shame others. That kind of stuff is right in the bibble: Something about not throwing the first stone, judging not, or removing the two-by-four from your own eye before pointing out the sliver in somebody else's. It seems to be a fact of life that the more voluble and shrill some holy roller is about sin, the more likely he is to be neck-deep in it.

But for the time being, somebody, anybody, please pass the popcorn.