GOP’s Brown takes Kennedy’s Senate seat

Last night, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat by a 52-47 percent margin. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the seat will be held by a Republican.

The LGBT press is chiming in on the results.

DC Agenda‘s Chris Johnson reports:

Many in the LGBT community were disappointed by Brown’s victory because he has a history of opposition to same-sex marriage and hasn’t expressed an interest in fighting for LGBT causes in Congress. In 2007, he voted for a failed state constitutional amendment that would have ended same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

By comparison, Democratic contender Martha Coakley, as the state’s attorney general, last year filed a lawsuit on behalf on the State of Massachusetts against the Defense of Marriage Act, citing that 16,000 married couples in the state are denied federal benefits because of the law.

Dee Dee Edmundson, political director for MassEquality, said Brown’s win was “a call to action” for LGBT people to become more politically involved.

And, Keen News Service’s Chuck Culbert reports in Chicago’s Windy City Times:

LGBT-rights groups worked intensely on a gay get-out-the-vote effort in support of Coakley.

MassEquality sent e-mail alerts to a 40,000-member e-mail list, as well as direct snail-mail literature to 10,000 members, according to Dee Dee Edmondson, political director for the group. Openly gay state Rep. Carl Sciortino also recorded a message for the organization in response to anti gay-baiting robo calls that were generated over the weekend by the New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage. And all week MassEquality volunteers staffed phone banks to remind LGBT people to vote. Unlike the 1990 gubernatorial race, this election was not close enough for the LGBT vote to make a difference.

“Despite Scott Brown’s victory,” said LGBT community leader Elyse Cherry of Brookline, a Coakley supporter, “people here have gotten quite used to equal marriage. It’s hard for me to see that changing.” Cherry was on hand at the Boston Sheraton, where Coakley supporters gathered for election-night returns. And while “Brown has a very strong anti-gay record,” Cherry said, “it’s not clear that [ anti-gay sentiment ] drove this election.”

The radical fundamentalists are chiming in, too. Liberty Counsel, the legal advocacy group affiliated with the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, says in a press release:

We are witnessing a new revolution in America. It is a revolution of ideas and values. President Barack Obama misread his election victory to be a referendum on radical liberalism. It was not. The radical policies of Obama, Reid and Pelosi have been rejected. The tax and spend, big government, anti-life agenda has been pushed back. ObamaCare has been derailed.

Democrats and liberal pundits are pointing fingers at Martha Coakley as the reason for this historic shift in the election. In Virginia they tried to explain the defeat of liberal policies to a lackluster candidate. In New Jersey, they said Jon Corzine had too much baggage.

Until they admit that the problem is their radical policies, they will continue to self-destruct. If the liberals in Congress do not drastically change course, then the Massachusetts election will be a microcosm of November 2010.