Not so secret anymore
It's a well-known fact that Republican sex scandals are the very best kind. For normal people who want to engage in consensual no-no sex, that's their own private no-no sex bidness, to work out with the marriage counselors and divorce lawyers. But for those whose careers are built on regurgitating bumper stickers from "the Bible," telling their fellow Americans which sex sticks should go in which sex holes, and how and when and in what position and for what purpose, well, that's a whole nother thing entirely. Like, say, if you're impeaching the president for getting some extramarital knob-polishing, while you are doing the very exact same thing. Or if you are writing amicus love notes to federal courts demanding the preservation of traditional boy-on-girl marriage, while you are sexting a college intern who is not your wife. Or if you give speeches about how consenting adults who love each other are a danger to children, but you have a history of finger-banging your own very young sisters. Or if a thousand other examples we could easily provide for you, but you're smart enough to get the point.
Thus behold, America, your fresh new Republican sex scandal, courtesy of Michigan state Reps. Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat:
The pair are socially conservative legislators who often invoke their Christian faith in pursuit of new legislation governing gun rights, abortion and marriage . Their political alliance dates back to Courser’s unsuccessful 2013 race for Michigan Republican Party chairman when Gamrat ran as his vice chairwoman. [...]
In an unusual arrangement, Courser and Gamrat combined their office operations, having three aides effectively work for both of them.
Oh, and perhaps more unusually? They've also been fucking each other. For how long? Unclear:
“It wasn’t back to the beginning and it wasn’t yesterday,” said Courser, later adding “some things happened and shouldn’t have happened.”
Ofcoursethey are both married, with children, though not to each other. So when they each received anonymous text messages from someone who claimed to be well aware of their secret affair, they certainly realized how damaging it would be to their careers and reputations -- as good Christian family values teabaggers, remember. But instead of quietly resigning, or coming clean to the press, their sad cuckholded spouses standing beside them, insisting they'd had a long hard talk with Jesus, and he'd forgiven them, so let's move on, Rep. Courser came up with an even better idea: Why not spam his colleagues and media with an "anonymous" email with "an over-the-top story that’s obscene," like, say, that he is a perverted gay-hooker-banging porn addict? That he could easily deny, and even blame on his political enemies, of whom he has many even among his own party, and, should the real story come out -- that he and his secret straight lover have been using "their taxpayer-funded offices to maintain and cover up their relationship" -- who would possibly believe it? Even if there were evidence, like photographs or videos or the like, well, that would seem like nothing compared to the gay stuff, right?
Pretty genius, huh? So Courser ordered Ben Graham, one of the aides he shared with his lover, to make that happen. But Graham, along with two other shared aides, was already quite uncomfortable with the illicit relationship.
Graham, [Keith] Allard and former aide Joshua Cline said they internally opposed the relationship between Courser and Gamrat and how it complicated the operations of their jointly run House office.
“Everything in the office was done and intertwined around their relationship — from time management to who’s going to get what bills,” said Cline, a former legislative director who quit working for Courser and Gamrat in April after he said he confronted them about their relationship and “unprofessional” office behavior.
Unsurprisingly, Graham was reluctant to participate in this completely insane conspiracy cooked up by his boss. Rather than do as he was told, he decided to secretly record his boss (which is legal in Michigan) explaining how this whole plan was supposed to work. On the recording, Graham repeatedly tries to dissuade his boss from going through with it:
“This is a crazy way to deal with this situation,” Graham told Courser on May 19. “Normally, people just like front it off, head it off themselves and say ‘Hey, this happened’ or quietly resign and go away.”
Ultimately, Graham refused to cooperate, and within less than two months, both he and Allard were fired without explanation. The email, however, sent by "George Rathburn," ended up in a whole lot of inboxes anyway:
Courser, a Lapeer Republican, said [...] the email was designed to create “a complete smear campaign” of exaggerated, false claims about him and Gamrat so a public revelation about the legislators’ relationship would seem “mild by comparison.”
Courser has confirmed that it is indeed his voice on the recording with his former aide. He has offered no further comment, and it seems his sexxytime partner in crime, Michigan state Rep. Cindy Gamrat, has not spoken about the revelations, although on the recording, Courser assured Graham that she was trying to work things out with her husband.
As of press time, neither representative has said how they plan to explain this to the children.
[ Detroit News ]
Dr. Evil would call this scheme stupid and overcomplicated.
The biggest shock of all is that there is such a thing as a "prominent Lansing nightclub".