 U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, the front-runner in the Republican primary election for U.S. Senate, finds himself the object of an unusual attack ad from one of his lesser-known opponents.
Andy Martin, once known as Anthony Martin-Trigona, who has run for numerous elective offices over the last three decades in Illinois, Florida and Connecticut, taped a commercial saying Kirk is gay.
| So long as he's not teaching school children about fisting, or planning to seduce Congressional pages of either sex, I'm afraid I am uninterested in what happens in his -- or anyone else's -- bedroom, so long as both parties are there of their own free will. |
Martin's source? Statements some conservative Republicans made on a radio show saying they have heard "rumors" that Kirk is gay.
"Illinois Republican leader Jack Roeser says there is a 'solid rumor that Kirk is a homosexual,'" Martin says in the ad. "Roeser suggests that Kirk is part of a Republican Party homosexual club. Lake County Illinois Republican leader Ray True says Kirk has surrounded himself with homosexuals. Mark Kirk should tell Republican voters the truth."
Kirk, a U.S. Naval Intelligence officer, was unavailable for comment because he is on active duty over the holidays, said spokesman Eric Elk.
But Elk issued this statement on his behalf: "The ad is not true and is degrading to the political process. The people of Illinois deserve better."
In one of the many e-mails Martin sends to Chicago media -- often in the middle of the night -- Martin offers links to a tape of a radio show in which Roeser and True did make the comments referenced in the ad.
"You've got Mark Kirk, who's been so strong on his homosexuals so long that the solid rumor is that he himself is a homosexual," Roeser said on the program, adding, "Who, in Christ's name, needs to get themselves identified as a freak in the sexual department?" They named other Illinois Republicans they suspect are gay.
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