Creep of the Week: Vito Fossella

Thank God marriage is safe in Michigan. Marriage for straight folks, of course. Not only marriage, but health care and other benefits that one person may be the conduit through which another person gets them are also safe from the gays here thanks to a ruling last week by the Michigan Supreme Court.
So what does Vito Fossella have to do with this?
Nothing. And everything.
You see, even though Fossella is a Republican congressman from New York, there is no doubt that he would have supported the anti-gay marriage ban in Michigan. After all, Fossella, who has an 81% rating from the Christian Coalition, supports the amending the United States Constitution to ban marriage for gays.
And no wonder Fossella wants to keep gays from legally creating families. He apparently wants to keep them all to himself. Families, that is. Not gays.
You see, it turns out that Fossella, who is married and has three daughters, has a fourth daughter. Only his fourth daughter isn't with his wife. It's with his mistress.
But hey, maybe no one would have ever noticed his little double life if it hadn't been for that darn drunk driving arrest.
At the end of April, Fossella was pulled over in Virginia for running a red light. According to the New York Times, he "was unsteady on his feet, unable to recite a section of the alphabet" and reeked of alcohol. Police charged him with a DUI.
When a lady came and bailed him out of jail it wasn't his wife, but Colonel Laura Fay. When it was proposed that Fay might be more than just a "close friend" as Fossella's spokesman claimed, Fossella at first denied everything.
He has since fessed up.
"My personal failings and imperfections have caused enormous pain to the people I love, and I am truly sorry," he said in a statement.
Personally, I think Fossella's being too hard on himself. This whole thing isn't his fault. His marriage simply wasn't protected. If only the state of New York had an anti-gay marriage amendment in their constitution, perhaps all of this mess could have been avoided.
Now Fossella's career is in jeopardy. He faces jail time for the drunk driving arrest and his current status as an adulterer probably isn't going to help much in his reelection bid. Which is too bad since conservatives seem to like him so much. He's spent his entire career trying to please them.
According to the blog Joe.My.God., Fossella has voted against funding for joint adoption by gay couples, demanded funds be withheld from San Francisco unless it ditched its domestic partner legislation, voted in favor of an anti-gay adoption amendment in the District of Columbia, voted against the Matthew Shepard Act and voted to overturn Clinton's executive order banning discrimination against gay and lesbian federal employees.
But don't worry. Fossella's anti-gay leanings aren't all an act. He practices what he preaches. The New York Daily News reported that he doesn't even speak to his openly gay sister, Victoria, and refuses to go to family events if she and her partner will be there.
Family values, indeed.