Sen. Gordon Smith, R-OR, has decided to vote against the queer community and support the “nuclear option” which would stop filibusters of Bush’s most homophobic judicial nominees. This is an interesting payback for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) which endorsed Smith’s 2002 Senate campaign in spite of the fact that his opponent was more supportive on lgbt issues.

The HRC has a habit of endorsing some Republicans who are less supportive than their opponents each election. This obvious pandering to wealthy Republican donors has been rationalized in various ways, none of which have ever had much credibility. One favorite excuse has been that endorsing less supportive Republicans is a way to improve our community’s relationship with that party, which supposedly will help us in the legislative arena.

The HRC has been making these deceptive endorsements since at least 1994, and the national GOP is even more fanatical in its homo-hatred than before. You would think that the HRC would abandon a strategy that has failed to achieve even one important queer civil rights victory, if the misleading endorsements actually were part of a legislative strategy.

Smith has taught the HRC an important lesson, pandering to Republicans does not make them your friends. The HRC needs to hold Republican politicians to the same standards that they hold everyone else to.