Kansas Democrat engages in gay bashing

A last minute anti-gay campaign helped a Kansas Democrat eke out a victory in yesterday's statehose primary. The concern trolls who have been telling the Democrats that we need to embrace the religious right's "family values" narrative must be happy today.

Inga Taylor, a Victory-Fund endorsee, had outraised and out-organized her opponent, Gail Finney. But Finney and her supporters launched a late mail, e-mail and phone campaign highlighting Taylor’s sexual orientation and contributions to her campaign from the Victory Fund. Finney is the Vice-chair of the Sedgwick County Democratic Party.

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Late Tuesday, when the scope of the anti-gay effort became apparent, Victory Fund president and CEO Chuck Wolfe sent an emergency request to Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius, asking her as titular head of the Kansas Democratic Party to denounce Finney’s tactics and call on her to remove herself from the race and to step down from her party position. Sibelius did not respond by the time polls closed Tuesday night.

Sibelius has been widely talked up as a possible vice presidential choice for Obama and as someone poised to make a big splash in the national party. Let's hope she takes a firm stand against this sort of Republican hate and fear politics. If Finney is a delegate to the national convention, this would be a good time for the credentials committee to take a stand. This kind of crap has no place in our party.