A good old-fashioned sex scandal has been unfolding in the Minnesota Senate over the past few months. In the fall, Republican Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch admitted to having an “inappropriate” relationship with a staffer. Soon afterwards, Senate leadership fired Michael Brodkorb, a staffer who had gained notoriety as a combative Republican Party operative. Brodkorb is now suing the Senate for gender discrimination, claiming that female staffers have had affairs with male legislators and were not dismissed from their jobs. That’s right; the entire theory of his claim can be summarized as “Why all the playa-hatin’?”
The sheer audacity of Brodkarb’s claim speaks volumes about his character. But it’s also worth noting that both Brodkorb and Koch played important roles in the effort to get a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the November ballot while they were vigorously undermining traditional marriage. Such hypocrisy from conservatives is now all too routine, but it still deserves attention when the public is being urged to legitimize discrimination of friends, family, and neighbors.
