I always thought George Voinovich was a pretty decent guy.

Maybe it's because he is from my home town (Cleveland) and he's half Slovenian (like me).

Maybe it's because he has, on occasion, gone against the Bush administration, voting against Bolton and Bush's retarded tax cuts and earning him the label of "disloyal" by conservative activists.

Then I saw this letter; a response to a question about his vote on the "Marriage Protection Amendment".

I can forgive the guy for sending out a form letter containing the party's talking points- especially on some in-the-news issue like same-sex marriage.

But this one goes too far.

The first paragraph starts off as expected: "I support the traditional definition of marriage, and I believe it should be protected"

Standard republican message. Nothing too crazy.

The second paragraph, however, just jumps right off the edge of sane-town…

"In a world where images and descriptions of violence, sex, and drugs permeate our culture, must do all that we can to provide them"

How did we go from "I support traditional marriage" to "Gay people are violent drug-abusers that are a danger to our children"???

I tried to read the rest of the letter but I couldn't get past that part.

It's unbelievable, really.

And I can't get it out of my head.

I'll have to postpone my clever closing. Instead, I'll leave you with two facts.

1. The annual Cleveland Gay Pride Festival is held at Voinovich Bicentennial Park

2. In a study titled The Potential Budgetary Impact of Recognizing Same-Sex Marriages, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that recognizing same-sex marriages in all 50 states "would improve the budget's bottom line", adding as much as $1 Billion a year over the next ten years.