Tennessee Democrats Disavow Anti-Gay Senate Candidate

Associated Press

Sunday Aug 5, 2012

[Photo: Mark Clayton]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The Tennessee Democratic Party is disavowing
the man who won the party’s nomination to challenge Republican Sen.
Bob Corker in November, saying the little-known candidate belongs to
an anti-gay hate group.

Mark Clayton, 35, reported raising no money and campaigned little but
received more than 48,000 votes, twice the number of his nearest
competitor in Thursday’s seven-candidate Democratic primary.

Clayton is vice president of Falls Church, Va.-based Public Advocate
of the United States, which calls itself a conservative advocacy
group. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the organization an
anti-gay hate group.

Clayton did not immediately return messages left Friday. Public
Advocate says on its website that it "offers strong and vocal
opposition to," among other things, "same-sex marriage and the
furtherance of so-called gay rights."

The Tennessee Democratic Party said in a statement that many Democrats
knew nothing about any of the candidates and suggested that Clayton
won simply because his name appeared first on the ballot.

Party spokesman Sean Braisted said officials are trying to figure out
what the party can do beyond condemning Clayton.

[Photo: Mark Clayton]

We aren’t taking any options off the table at this time," Braisted
said in an email. "He does not speak for the Democratic Party."

In 2008, the party stripped a state senator who had sided with
Republicans in a legislative leadership vote of her 19-vote primary
win on the grounds that Republican involvement made the outcome
"incurably uncertain." Last month, a federal court upheld the action.

The Democrats and the state attorney general’s office argued that the
primaries are a party function and not a state election, so courts
generally cannot get involved in disputes over who is named as the
nominee.

Clayton ran for the Senate as a Democrat in 2008, collecting just over
32,000 votes and finishing fourth.

Visit the Public Advocate website <http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/>

Watch this feature from the Rachel Maddow Show about Mark Clayton:

[Video: <http://youtu.be/k9mPkNlY-Y8> Tenn. Democrats nominate
conspiracy theorist for Senate - The Rachel Maddow Show (August 3rd,
2012) ]

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