This is how weak the GOP is today: for some, Virginia Foxx, GOP Hero

Virginia Foxx is decent church-goin’ woman with a mean, pinched, bitter evil face and she is the GOP’s parliamentary superstar, handling the Rules Committee and the familes of hate crimes victims with the same grace.

The Rules Committee is one of the most important committees in Congress. It decides amendments, debate length, and basically determines when and how bills get to the floor. So Virginia Foxx’s role, as a member of the minority party, is to be as big a pain in the ass as possible. Which is why she keeps making other members cry!

In January, Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) was testifying on the stimulus bill but left the committee room and did not return after Foxx drew a comparison between his handling of the bill and his habit of fiddling with a pencil.

Now this is not too terrible, because Dave Obey can be kind of a dick himself.

But:

She has also been an effective attack dog on the House floor. In March, Foxx caused freshman Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio) to become so flustered after an exchange about Kilroy’s vote on the American International Group Inc. bailout that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) soon held a parliamentary boot camp for Democratic freshmen to avoid future incidents.

Once again, not too bad. Parliamentary dickery is a time-honored House tradition, and the Dems could probably use a toughening up.

But where is the anecdote that basically proves that this is a small-minded, hateful, simplistic, miserable excuse for an elected official? Oh, here it is:

Foxx’s most public gaffe came last week during debate over the hate crimes bill. One of the pieces of the bill is named for Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old man murdered in 1998 because of his sexual orientation. Foxx said naming the bill for Shepard was a “hoax” because his murder “wasn’t because he was gay.”

It should be noted that Foxx said this while Matthew Shepard’s mother sat a couple feet away from her. It should also be noted that Matthew Shepard was, in fact, tortured and murdered because he was gay.

See Virginia Foxx, GOP Hero Gawker

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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/this-is-how-w…

Utah lawmaker who made anti-gay comments removed as committees’ chairman

A defiant Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said Friday he won’t let his ouster from two key legislative committee chairmanships stop him from defending marriage against “an increasingly vocal and radical segment of the homosexual community.”

Earlier Friday, Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, took the unusual step of publicly announcing he was removing Buttars as both chairman and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee

The decision also strips Buttars of his chairmanship of the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee. Buttars, re-elected last year to a third term, remains chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and vice-chairman of the powerful Rules Committee.

Waddoups said his action should not be seen as a punishment for anti-gay statements Buttars made to a documentary filmmaker, which include comparing gay-rights activists to Muslim terrorists and calling them “the greatest threat to America going down.”

The Senate leader said Buttars is considered by his colleagues to be a “stalwart” who “represents the views of many of his constituents and many of ours.” Waddoups acknowledged he did not agree with everything Buttars said, but he repeatedly declined to be specific.

See Utah lawmaker who made anti-gay comments removed as committees’ chairman
The Deseret News (Salt Lake City)