If You Thought Rick Santorum Was Bad on LGBT Rights, Watch Out For Pat Toomey

Without question, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum will go down in history as one of the staunchest anti-LGBT politicians in recent memory.  Santorum famously compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy and incest, and who called same-sex marriage the "death knell" of the American family.  Santorum's hatred toward all things LGBT got his last name redefined by LGBT columnist Dan Savage (one of our favorite political practical jokes of the last few years), and several Republican lawmakers (Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, former Senator Gordon Smith, former Senator Lincoln Chafee) blasted Santorum for openly promoting discrimination and bigotry toward LGBT people over the course of his Senate career.

But if you thought Rick Santorum was bad for LGBT rights, wait until you take a look at Pat Toomey.

Pat Toomey announced this week that he will be challenging Republican Senator Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's 2010 U.S. Senate Primary.  Toomey, the President of the Club for Growth (more on them in a minute), challenged Specter in 2004 and came within 2 points of knocking the incumbent off.  He's now up for a rematch, and if poll numbers are any indication, he may just clean Specter's clock in the GOP primary.

Make no mistake about this one though: Pat Toomey is as bad on LGBT rights as Sen. Rick Santorum, if not worse.

As a former GOP Congressman from the late 1990s through 2004, Toomey put together a legislative voting record that's to the right of Ken Starr on LGBT issues.  He openly supported a federal amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning gay marriage.  He voted to ban gay adoptions in the District of Columbia.  He voted for the Marriage Protection Act of 2004 (largely seen as an effort to completely overthrow the U.S. judicial system and usurp the power of federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court).

And as President of the Club for Growth?  Toomey has endorsed such politicians as former Rep. Bill Sali (who once voted down a domestic violence law because he thought it would lead to same-sex marriage, and who wanted to re-establish federal sodomy laws), Rep. Tom McClintock (a vocal proponent of Proposition 8) and former Rhode Island Senate candidate Steve Laffey (who wrote a string of anti-gay columns in the 1980s, and called homosexuals "sickly" and "decrepid").  Unrelated to LGBT issues, the Club for Growth is generally thought of as one of the most vicious and ruthless organizations around, mercilessly using attack ads to go after Democrats and moderate Republicans alike.

(It should also be noted that two years before Toomey took over as head of the Club for Growth, the Club was accused of firing an employee simply because he was gay.)

Pat Toomey brings the same anti-LGBT perspective to politics that Rick Santorum had.  The real difference between Toomey and Santorum is that Toomey is far more craven and intelligent than Santorum, and he could really wreak havoc in Washington if Pennsylvania sends him to the Senate.