Former Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) compared Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to a prostitute and suggested that outgoing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) seems gay in a National Journal profile published Wednesday.
Schweitzer, who as governor advocated for civil unions but has subsequently endorsed marriage equality, told reporter Marin Cogan on the night of Cantor’s surprising primary defeat, that Cantor and other southerners act and seem gay. Cogan wrote:
“Don’t hold this against me, but I’m going to blurt it out. How do I say this … men in the South, they are a little effeminate,” he offered when I mentioned the stunning news. When I asked him what he meant, he added, “They just have effeminate mannerisms. If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say — and I’m fine with gay people, that’s all right — but my gaydar is 60–70 percent. But he’s not, I think, so I don’t know. Again, I couldn’t care less. I’m accepting.”)
In the same article, the two-term governor took aim at Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chair Dianne Feinstein. Suggesting she had been close to the intelligence agencies she now has criticized for their alleged spying on Congressional staffers, Schweitzer say: “She was the woman who was standing under the streetlight with her dress pulled all the way up over her knees, and now she says, ‘I’m a nun,’ when it comes to this spying!” He then acknowledged that perhaps the prostitution analogy was perhaps “the wrong metaphor.”
Update:
In a Facebook post, Schweitzer apologized on Thursday, writing: “I recently made a number of stupid and insensitive remarks to a reporter from the National Journal. I am deeply sorry and sincerely apologize for my carelessness and disregard.”