Anti-Gay GOP California senator busted for drunk driving -- leaving a gay bar

I was tempted to kick this blog back into action on the news of a recently discovered GOP internal presentation for Republican National Committee fundraisers that characterized many party donors as "reactionary" and suggested fund-raisers play to donor's ego- and fear- driven motivations and their desire to buy "access" to political leaders. But... that was yesterday.

Today's news is admittedly more local -- but even more delicious for a Southern California moderate.

For those unfamiliar with California politics, they're simple: agribusiness and prisons utterly dominate politics outside the major metropolitan areas.

And that means that, while Cali cities have a broad mix of political types from left to right, California's rural, inland political life is dominated by extremely socially conservative politicians who paradoxically support large expenditures of government cash for subsidies for agribusiness and who kowtow to what has been the most influential union in California politics: the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA).

Few among those socially conservative political ranks have been as steadfastly "pro-family" -- as long as pro-family is defined strictly as being rabidly anti-gay -- as Republican state Sen. Roy Ashburn, who has voted against every gay rights measure that has come before him.

Making it just that much more, shall we say, piquant, that the married father of four was recently arrested while driving erratically, accompanied by an unidentified male passenger, after leaving a gay bar and nightclub called Faces. He had a blood alcohol almost twice the legal limit. The senator was taken to the Sacramento County jail, booked and released.

And -- get this -- he was arrested driving a state-owned vehicle.

Read more at KTLA.com.