Get a Load of this Guy

The NY Times reports that prominent Republican consultant Arthur J. Finkelstein just took advantage of the beautiful blue in Massachusetts—to marry his male partner.

Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

"I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners," he said.

…after spending a lifetime helping foster the political careers of people like Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Don Nickels (R-OK), both of whom were such virulent homobigots that they even voted against bills proposed to protect the LGBT community against discrimination.

One of Mr. Finkelstein's associates, who declined to speak on the record, citing Mr. Finkelstein's desire for privacy, said Mr. Finkelstein did not view his marriage as a political statement and had specifically decided to have a civil ceremony rather than a religious one. This associate argued that over the past 20 years, Mr. Finkelstein had identified himself as a libertarian and an opponent of big government, distancing himself from social conservatives as they have gained political muscle and dominance in the party.

[…]

Mr. Finkelstein has frequently come under criticism by gay rights groups for representing politicians who have been ardent foes of gay rights. He helped create the template for a line of attack he repeatedly invoked against Democrats, including Mario M. Cuomo of New York, describing them as liberal.

And yet, he was perfectly willing to reap the benefits of liberal policies, marrying his longtime partner, and, what the NY Times article doesn’t mention but this article does, adopting two children.

Finkelstein has made millions demonizing liberals and liberal policies, running attack campaigns against Mario Cuomo, Jack Reed, and Paul Wellstone, yet depends on the spirit of full equality championed by liberals, who have fought for the rights of the gay community to have equal marriage and parenting rights, to create the family he wanted, the family his clients would never allow.

I’m glad Mr. Finkelstein and his husband have that family. I wish he and other disingenuous pricks like him wouldn’t make their names and fortunes trying to prevent others from having the same.