On MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews today, former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), co-chair of President Obama’s debt commission, railed against the social conservatives in the Republican party. He admonished male legislators for voting on abortion issues and “homophobes” like Rick Santorum who say “cruel, cruel things” about gays and lesbians:

SIMPSON: Who the hell is for abortion? I don’t know anybody running around with a sign that says, “Have an abortion! They’re wonderful!” They’re hideous, but they’re a deeply intimate and personal decision, and I don’t think men legislators should even vote on the issue.

Then you’ve got homosexuality, you’ve got Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We have homophobes on our party. That’s disgusting to me. We’re all human beings. We’re all God’s children. Now if they’re going to get off on that stuff—Santorum has said some cruel things—cruel, cruel things—about homosexuals. Ask him about it; see if he attributes the cruelness of his remarks years ago. Foul.

Now if that’s the kind of guys that are going to be on my ticket, you know, it makes you sort out hard what Reagan said, you know, “Stick with your folks.” But, I’m not sticking with people who are homophobic, anti-women, moral values—while you’re diddling your secretary while you’re giving a speech on moral values? Come on, get off of it.

Watch it:

Simpson could be referring to any number of leading Republican presidential contenders, including Newt Gingrich, who recently defended his support of the anti-gay American Family Association, Mike Huckabee, who “would love the world to be led by people who have a Biblical worldview, or Tim Pawlenty, who will never be at the point where he sees same-sex relationships as the same as traditional marriage.

Maryland Senate President Mike Miller (D)

The Maryland Senate voted 27-20 this afternoon to send the Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act (HB 235) back to the Judicial Proceedings Committee, effectively killing the bill. The legislation would have protected transgender Marylanders from discrimination in housing and employment.

Opponents of the bill, including Senate President Thomas “Mike” Miller (D) and chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee Brian Frosh (D), utilized every parliamentary technique at their disposal to prevent passage of the bill, including sending it to the Senate Rules committee and even keeping it off this morning’s legislative schedule. Today’s vote to recommit the bill to committee finally ended the bill’s chances of passing in 2011.

Metro Weekly reports that as many as nine Senators backed out of their committed support of the bill, including Senators Kasemeyer, Klausmeier, McFadden, Middleton, Robey, and Zirkin, all Democrats.

During the hearing held last week by the Judicial Proceedings Committee, opponents of the bill were offered more time than supporters to share their religiously-motivated transphobic testimony.

Mara Kiesling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, shared via phone that “the Maryland legislature is clearly not as pro-equality as the state of Maryland,” and that even though Senators Miller and Frosh are “not pro-equality yet,” they can expect to see this bill “every session until transgender people have equality in Maryland.”

As Montana’s legislature has discussed repealing its unconstitutional sodomy laws, state Rep. Ken Peterson (R) has propagated many negative messages about gays and lesbians, suggesting the law isn’t unconstitutional at all and should remain on the books.

Peterson argues there are still at least two prosecutable offenses: 1) The “recruitment” of non-gays and 2) public displays of same-sex affection:

— Homosexuals can’t go out into the heterosexual community and try to recruit people, or try to enlist them in homosexual acts. ‘Here, young man, your hormones are raging. Let’s go in this bedroom, and we’ll engage in some homosexual acts. You’ll find you like it.’

— In my mind, if they were engaging in acts in public that could be construed as homosexual, it would violate that statute. It has to be more than affection. It has to be overt homosexual acts of some kind or another… If kissing goes to that extent, yes. If it’s more than that, yes.

Peterson has no examples to substantiate his first claim, explaining, “I don’t associate with that group of people at all… I’ve associated with mainstream people all my life.” While “recruiting” gays is an absurd and archaic idea, such a proposition would be protected speech under the First Amendment anyway. Prosecuting same-sex kissing would similarly violate the First Amendment right to expression, but The Supreme Court held in Romer v. Evans that laws motivated solely by anti-gay animus are unconstitutional. It is difficult to see how his defense of the sodomy laws could be motivated by anything else.

Given his lack of association with “that group of people,” Peterson’s views are likely a reflection of his identification with the Church of Latter-Day Saints, whose leaders still condemn homosexuality as abnormal and amoral. Despite recently removing same-sex attraction from its list of sins, the Mormon Church still employs electric-shock therapy and other harmful ex-gay therapies to treat same-sex attraction.

Peterson also recently supported a measure that would have prevented Montana municipalities from passing non-discrimination ordinances that would protect LGBT Montanans, claiming the protections recently offered in Missoula don’t offer the necessary due process. The measure ultimately failed. (Tennessee is similarly attempting to limit its municipalities in this way.)

Various rights groups have been critical of Peterson in his role as House Judiciary Chairman, pointing out that he allots more time and allowances to pro-life and anti-gay groups testifying in hearings. Peterson defended himself against the criticisms, saying “I think they aren’t sitting in my chair so they don’t know to a large extent.”