How Sad

I'm really weeping over the investigation into whether Spokane mayor Jim West used his office computer to chat on online gay sites.

Via Americablog

Spokane Mayor Jim West's votes on gay-rights and human-rights issues:

On Christmas Eve 1985, Gov. Booth Gardner signed an executive order banning discrimination in state hiring based on sexual orientation. West and 14 other Republicans responded by introducing a bill in January 1986 that would have barred gay men and lesbians from working in schools, day-care centers and some state agencies. The bill called for screening prospective employees for sexual orientation and firing state workers whose sexual identities became known. The bill failed.

Also in 1986, West voted to bar the state from distributing pamphlets telling people how to protect themselves from AIDS during sex.

West opposed gay rights bills introduced in 1985 and 1987.In 1989, West opposed a proposal to expand a needle exchange program to protect people from AIDS from Pierce County to the entire state.

In 1990, as part of a bill on AIDS education, West proposed that teen sex be criminalized. The bill, written by the abstinence group Teen Aid, would have made sexual contact a misdemeanor for unmarried teenagers under 18. Sexual contact was defined as "any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person" for sexual gratification.

West voted in 1998 for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Gov. Gary Locke vetoed the bill, but the Legislature overrode his veto.

As Senate majority leader, West and other Republicans in 2003 bottled up the gay-rights bill in committee and it died.

As Spokane's incoming mayor in November 2003, West said he's opposed to extending City Hall benefits to domestic partners, citing the cost. In April 2005, the City Council approved domestic partner benefits in a 5-2 vote, enough to withstand a mayoral veto.

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You know, maybe I should feel sorry for someone who's been so deep in the closet that he's destroyed his own people. But I don't. People like West have done a lot of damage and they deserve whatever they have coming to them.