Lingle One Of ‘Anti-LGBT Dirty Dozen’

ThinkProgess LGBT has highlighted 12 anti-LGBT Senate candidates running in the 2012 elections, and one of them is Linda Lingle.

“Each has worked to hurt the cause of equality and each is running against an opponent with a record of support for LGBT Americans,” the website says.

Here’s why:

 In 2010, Lingle vetoed a civil unions bill that passed the state legislature, arguing that it was “essentially marriage by another name,” and should be decided by referendum. Making matters worse, she invited LGBT activists to attend her announcement ceremony, only to devastate them with her decision. Donald L. Bentz, executive director of Equality Hawaii, told ThinkProgress that Lingle made “an inhumane spectacle.” In a 1997 interview, she argued that marriage discrimination will always be permissible because it is currently popular, saying marriage equality “cannot ever be adopted in Hawaii because the people don’t support it. They simply don’t support it.”

Other members of the “dirty dozen” include Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.) and Rep. Todd Akin.

—Chad Blair