Hochul Win a Defeat for NOM

Democrat Kathy Hochul’s victory over Republican Jane Corwin in a
special election for an upstate New York congressional seat was also a
victory over antigay groups that supported Corwin.

The National
Organization for Marriage, which fights the extension of marriage
rights to same-sex couples, spent nearly $6,000 on voter calls in
support of Corwin, the blog Good as You
reports. Also, Corwin appeared at an event this month for a
conservative Christian group called the New Yorker’s Family Research
Foundation. The foundation’s president, the Reverend Jason McGuire, has
likened same-sex marriage to child abuse and asserted that gay New York
State legislators, such as Sen. Tom Duane and Assemblyman Daniel
O’Donnell, are going “against God’s word” by supporting marriage
equality and face “an eternity in hell,” Good as You notes.

Hochul
was elected Tuesday to fill the seat in Congress left vacant by the
February resignation of Christopher Lee, who, although married, was
reportedly soliciting sexual encounters with other women, including
transgender women, on Craigslist. Lee had an antigay voting record.
Hochul’s election in the conservative district is seen as a major coup
for Democrats.