I tend to avoid attacking Republicans here on this page, figuring that there are plenty of Democrats, and Democrats-with-bylines, who are paid to do that work.  Sometimes, though, you have an obligation to keep your own house clean.

Edgar Antillón, former Republican legislative candidate who now runs Guns For Everyone, a NRA Firearms Instruction company, suggested a “gay night” as a promotion.

Dudley Brown, head of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, and would-be Colorado Republican kingmaker, posted this comment last night on Facebook:

This is beneath contempt, but it shouldn’t be a big surprise.  Brown has previously been implicated in a lawsuit over an anti-gay flyer used in a state senate primary.

Some will no doubt leap to Brown’s defense, pointing to his having been helpful in the two successful recalls, and the Recall Hudak Too campaign which resulted in her resignation.   That rather rings hollow when here he his, making an ugly attack on gays on the page of someone who’s on his side on his signature issue.  So much for building alliances and coalitions.

Worse than that, this kind of garbage makes principled opposition to redefining marriage, and principled support of religious conscience much harder to maintain.  It is not only possible, it is necessary, to make those arguments without rancor and hatred.  Brown’s very public bigotry makes it all to easy for those on the other side to caricature traditional conservative positions.

Full disclosure: I’ve had personal experience with Brown, although not over gays, but over guns.  Or rather, over his gun group.  In 2010, Brown took to my campaign Facebook page to complain that I hadn’t returned his candidate questionnaire, using that as the standard for calling me “not conservative.”  Given that the outcome of the race was just under 2-1 in favor of my Democrat opponent, Dudley’s efforts probably did not constitute her margin of victory.