Earlier today, we told you about a Pennsylvania legislator who accused her primary opponent of pretending to be bisexual in order to get votes from the large LGBT community in her Philadelphia district.
At a fundraiser a week ago, state Rep. Babette Josephs (D) told supporters that they couldn’t trust her opponent, Gregg Kravitz, not to cheat at the polls. He had lied before, she said.
“I outed him as a straight person,” she said, “and now he goes around telling people, quote, ‘I swing both ways.'”
Reached this afternoon by TPM, however, she backed off a little from her claims.
“I don’t even care, because a person’s sexuality has nothing to do with any of this,” Josephs said.
She may have thought better of it since Kravitz has accused her of “sending a damaging message” to the LGBT community, especially young people, by mocking his sexuality (which he maintains is sincere).
That message, he told TPM, is “‘Be careful about being open because somebody like Babette Josephs will publicly ridicule you.'”
Perhaps ironically, Kravitz was the one who publicized Josephs’ remarks, sending the tape to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Today, he tweeted links to several stories about the remarks, including TPM’s.
“Personally, I’ll get over it. But this kind of rhetoric is not only inflammatory, but damaging to members of the LGBT community,” he said when asked about that. “The public has a right to know when one of their elected officials is using these dirty campaign tactics to try to win votes.”
Kravitz explained to TPM that he has had “intimate relationships” with both men and women, and is currently involved with a woman.
He went on to say that although he “sincerely hopes” someone wouldn’t vote for him because he’s bisexual, he thinks it’s “important for people who are supportive of LGBT rights to know that if I win, they have a representative in Harrisburg who’s personally invested” in gay rights.
Kravitz does admit that Josephs, who has been in office for 25 years, has a strong record on gay rights, fighting against a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and co-sponsoring a bill that would add the LGBT community to a hate-crimes bill.
