In the latest anti-gay attack on New York Republicans who voted last year to pass that state’s marriage equality law, a disgruntled former mayoral candidate in Buffalo, New York is circulating a pornographic campaign mailer targeting GOP state senator Mark Grisanti.
The front of the mailer, which was first reported by Politico, accuses Grisanti of being a “political whore” whose vote for the freedom to marry meant that he was trying to “get in [gay voters’] pants;” the text is accompanied by a helpful image of two young men about to do get into each other’s pants. (According to multiple sources, the sexy images in the ad were apparently lifted from the gay bareback porn studio Corbin Fisher.)
The reverse side features an image of the same two men, ummm, having sex kissing each other above text that reads “Make sure your Son [sic] says, ‘Thank you, Mark Grisanti'” A disclosure line at the bottom says that the ad was paid for by “The Committee to Save the Erie County Republican Party.”
You can view the (very NSFW) ad below.
Chris Geidner at BuzzFeed reports on the origin of the ad:
Buffalo-area bloggers and writers have been commenting about the anti-Grisanti machinations of “The Committee to Save the Eric County Republican Party” for a few months now, with multiple people connecting the “committee” to Matthew Ricchiazzi, a Cornell University graduate who ran a failed campaign for Buffalo mayor. One post refers to his “bizarro politics” while another in August mentioned “the pornographic mailer” he was preparing. . .
UPDATE II: In a public letter announcing the end of his failed mayoral run, Ricciazzi identified as bisexual.
UPDATE III: Alan Bedenko, cited above, writes for ArtVoice and tweeted that the prepared mailer never actually was sent. He added that the basis of Ricchiazzi’s animus toward Grisanti resulted from this series of incidents.
