The Republican lawmaker in Michigan who fabricated a gay sex scandal to allegedly cover up his affair with a fellow tea party state lawmaker posted a lengthy message Saturday on Facebook explaining that he is “a sinner” but that doesn’t mean “God is dead.”
Rep. Todd Courser (R) was allegedly involved in an extramarital affair with fellow freshman lawmaker Rep. Cindy Gamrat (R), a relationship that was made public by audio recordings published by the Detroit News newspaper.
The recordings exposed a conversation in which Courser asked an aide to send an anonymous email to Republican activists alleging the lawmaker had been spotted having sex with a male prostitute. The phony scandal was designed to make details about his relationship with Gamrat “mild by comparison” when they were released, according to the audio recordings.
The aide refused and was later fired. Courser has since said that he wrote and sent the email to some Republican lawmakers in order to expose a blackmailer.
On Saturday, Courser published a lengthy and rambling Facebook post that was peppered with Bible verses and an explanation that the scandal had been a “massive earthquake” for himself and his family.
He wrote that he had become “the poster boy for those who would say ‘God is dead,’ or ‘Christians are failures,’ or ‘Christians are hypocrites.'”
“Instantly I have been shown to be a hypocrite in my life, a liar, a laughable joke; much if not all of that is presently justified,” he wrote. “But in spite of all of that I am a Christian and I am a follower of Christ, and my failures in no way reduce or negate God’s promises; no unfortunately they showcase Him and His promises –both positive and negative.”
Courser wrote that some have “enjoyed the spectacle of watching a man burn and have reveled in the joy it has brought in themselves.”
But, he wrote, some men “have come forward to express their own failures to me in fidelity.” Similarly, he said, some talked to him about having “guilt and shame” for “having homosexual tendencies.” According to the lawmaker, a pastor even went as far as to confess having thought about murder “enough to be guilty of it.”
From Courser’s Facebook post:
A special group has been of those men who have come forward to express their own failures to me in fidelity and what guilt and shame they have felt for their own failures in their own faith and faithfulness to God, His holy word, and to their wives and children. Just having heard their stories has been some of the most humbling experiences of my life; with several have come forward to share their pain for participating in/and addicted to pornography and what that has wrought in themselves and their families. And finally a couple have come forward to express their guilt and shame for being faith filled but struggling with how to reconcile that with having homosexual tendencies and trying to reconcile that with their faith. In every one of these experiences it has been an incredibly humbling to me. I am not sure why all of this coming out about me has brought them forward, but I am eternally grateful for their words and their experiences. One pastor told me – “Todd I can’t condemn you, I have committed every sin in the bible, but for one and that is murder, and that last one I have thought about enough to be guilty of it.” He said and I am a pastor.
Both Courser and Gamrat have publicly apologized. A state investigation was launched to determine whether taxpayer resources were used to cover up their relationship.
