Death Threats for Lesbian Lawmaker Who Threatens to Expose Affairs

An openly lesbian legislator has been receiving death threats in the past few days, after she threatened to expose the extramarital affairs of her colleagues who opposed gay marriage.

Gay Star News reports that First Alabama State Representative Patricia Todd had heard enough negative comments after the state's ban on same-sex marriage was struck down by a federal judge, and threatened to expose the dalliances of her anti-gay colleagues in the legislature for being hypocritical.

"I will not stand by and allow legislators to talk about 'family values' when they have affairs, and I know of many who are and have. I will call our elected officials who want to hide in the closet out," wrote Todd on her Facebook page.

"It is pretty well known that we have people in Montgomery who are or have had affairs..." Todd told the TimesDaily. "I just want them to be careful what they're saying, some of it might come back to stick on them."

Todd has stuck to her message, appearing on All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC on Tuesday night to discuss why she is going after anti-gay politicians by using their own dirty laundry against them.

"I just wanna remind [politicians who oppose gay marriage], they don't have the corner on family values. There are thousands of gay couples across the state, many raising children, that have much stronger family values than they do. It's an attempt to try to cool the rhetoric... if you want to talk to me of the merits of the issue then that's fine. But I'm not going to let you get away with a five second sound bite where you condemn me and my community."

Todd is the first openly gay elected official in Alabama. In September 2014, she married her partner of nine years in Massachusetts.

"My life's been threatened in the past couple of days," Todd told Michelangelo Signorile of Sirius XM, as reported in Towleroad. "A lot of my friends are worried about my safety. The police are patrolling by my house more often. I've got an alarm system. I am being careful. But they're not going to scare me back into my house. I'm not going to let them do that."

In a January 29 article in the Washington Times, Todd said that she would back off on her threats under fear of being sued for defamation -- and on her attorney's request.

"I don't have proof," she told the WAPI radio station in her district of Birmingham. "I'm not involved in the affair. Some of it's pretty common knowledge in Montgomery," she said. "I was advised by my attorney not to say things I don't have proof that it's true, because then I could be sued for slander."