We got an update on a State Assembly race in California from Chris Moore, the President of the Stonewall Democratic Club of Greater Sacramento who formerly served as Political Director for Equality California.
This isn’t just any race. One of the candidates is the notoriously homophobic Andrew Pugno, of Prop. 8 infamy. He’s running against Richard Pan, a pediatrician, who has spent his career trying to improve health care for kids.
Chris reports that NOM has weighed into this race by exploiting children, which is one of the most insidious ploys. Here’s the report:
The folks behind the divisive and hurtful Yes on Proposition 8 T.V. ads just couldn’t help themselves — The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is once again using children as political pawns, but this time in an attempt to elect one of their own, Andrew Pugno, to the California State Assembly by smearing his pro-equality challenger Dr. Richard Pan. The two are facing off in a hotly contested race for Assembly District 5 in the Sacramento region.
Pugno is the golden boy of the nation-wide anti marriage equality effort. His career sets him apart from your standard anti marriage equality activists and includes such highlights as: Chief of Staff to the notoriously homophobic late Senator Pete Knight, Co-Author of Proposition 8, and lead attorney for the Yes on 8 Campaign. It is no surprise that NOM is spending big to have their go-to California political operative elected to the Assembly.
NOM has spent over 2,000 to air a new television ad in which they warn that Pugno’s opponent, Richard Pan, will support the teaching of gay marriage to 2nd graders. See the ad here.
It is fairly ironic that NOM is divisively using children as political pawns in an effort to smear Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician that has focused his career on building community partnerships to increase children’s health coverage. Dr. Pan co-founded the Healthy Kids Healthy Future program, which secured health, dental and vision coverage for over 65,000 children in the Sacramento region.
Assembly District 5 was drawn as a Republican district in 2000 but has been trending more and more Democratic. The polling for the race shows that Dr. Pan will win as long as his campaign can get the message out about Pugno’s extremist past. In addition to Pugno’s anti-gay past, he has also worked to eliminate all abortions, even in the case of incest and rape.
To learn more about this race and Andrew Pugno’s extreme past, visit www.stopandrewpugno.com.
To help Dr. Richard Pan. His website is here
