And the winner is…
2005 wasn't just the Year of the Cock, it was also the Year of the Creep. Creep of the Week debuted as a weekly column in BTL in our Jan. 13, 2005 issue. 50 weeks and 47 different Creeps later, we bid 2005 farewell and crown a Creep of the Year.
Ladies and gentleman, it's a three-way.
Out of all the Creeps who have graced our pages, three have the dubious honor of being named more than once: Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, Michigan State Senator Alan Cropsey (R-DeWitt) and Michigan State Senator Mike Goschka (R-Saginaw).
Congratulations to the Three Musketeers of Michigan's anti-gay Republican right, all of whom have worked hard to curtail the rights of LGBT people. Their prize, a yearlong subscription to Unzipped magazine, is on its way.
I'm kidding. I don't have that kind of money. And even if I did, sending them gay porn would only further cement their boneheaded notion that LGBT people aren't people at all, but just a "collect 'em all" set of sex acts they'd like to see banned performed by people they'd probably like to put in prison.
Sen. Goschka made his debut as Creep in July, when he and leaders of so-called "family organizations" sent a letter to the AFL-CIO accusing the union of being part of the "homosexual agenda" for coming out against constitutional amendments to ban marriage for same-sex couples.
In October Goschka was back, this time calling gay and lesbian relationships "utter perversity" and claiming that "homosexual and lesbian unions under any arrangement does not, and never will, constitute a family." When PFLAG asked him to apologize he told them to go blow. Actually what he said was, "They should apologize for their lifestyle and tolerating something so terrible."
No doubt Sen. Cropsey would agree. Cropsey made his debut as an anti-gay creep long before this column debuted as the originator of Michigan's anti-gay marriage amendment. But he made his debut in this space in March for opposing a recommendation by the Office of the Children's Ombudsman that called for greater access to second-parent adoption. Michigan children, they said, deserve to have the legal protection of two parents when possible. Unless, of course, Cropsey doesn't like your parents.
Cropsey was back, swinging wildly against an invisible gay menace, in October when he introduced resolutions opposing Judge Joyce Draganchuk's ruling that domestic partner benefits are a privilege of employment, not of marriage. Cropsey didn't want to see the state and public universities "push the same-sex thing onto Michigan taxpayers" by giving "special benefits to homosexuals."
Of course, Cropsey never would have introduced his resolutions if Attorney General Cox, who was Creep the week after Cropsey in March, hadn't issued an opinion that when Michigan voters voted for the so-called Òmarriage amendmentÓ in November, they also voted to yank DP benefits from gay families. The issue is currently subject of a lawsuit and is headed for the Michigan Supreme Court.
Then, in November, a year after the anti-gay marriage amendment he championed passed, Cox was at a press conference admitting to an affair. This earned him further Creepdom, if only to highlight that a man who has bolstered his career attacking loving LGBT families apparently couldn't even mind his own. For shame.
The bad news is that weÕre stuck with Cropsey until 2008. The good news, though, is that Goschka is term limited and can be replaced with a more equality-minded state Senator in 2006.
And, of course, Cox will be running for re-election in 2006.
Vote, baby, vote.
