Anti-Gay Senate Hopeful Has Posed Nude

An anti-gay Massachusetts politician is angling to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in the United States Senate. Gossip site Gawker reports that he posed nude for a magazine more than a quarter of a century ago.

Massachusetts State Sen. Scott Brown--who won his current seat in a special election 2004--is hoping to replicate his earlier success with the coming special election to replace Edward "Ted" Kennedy, whose death leaves one of the state’s Senate seats vacant on Capitol Hill.

Gawker noted that Brown is the father of former American Idol contestant Ayla Brown.

Newweek’s online blog The Gaggle noted in a Sept. 15 posting that Brown’s campaign has dismissed concerns about his nude modeling gig based on the fact that he’s a man--whereas a woman candidate in a similar situation, the Newsweek blog noted, would face a double standard.

"Although a nude centerfold might not kill a female politician’s career," the blog’s text read, "it would most certainly prompt questions about her character.

"Was she unacceptably promiscuous? Did she have a wild, compromising youth?

"While we scoff at the exploits of young men─they’re allowed to be ’footloose and carefree’─women are rarely afforded that luxury," the blog went on.

"For Brown, who just turned 50, it’s a case of ’boys will be boys.’ We can giggle at Brown’s treasure trail and not think twice about how the sight of it affects his political career."

Gawker and Newseek noted that the photo, which ran in Cosmpolitan in 1982, was dug up two years ago by Web site Wonkette.

Brown announced that he would run for the seat on Sept. 12, which also happened to be his 50th birthday, reported The Boston Globe.

Though the state skews heavily Democratic, Brown expressed optimism in a statement he released that day. "I have always thought that being in government service is a privilege, not a right," the Globe quoted from Brown’s statement.

"This Senate seat doesn’t belong to any one person or political party. It belongs to you, the people, and the people deserve a US senator who will always put your interests first."

Brown created controversy in 2007 when he appeared at a school and read aloud comments, some including profanity, that had been posted about himself and his daughter at Facebook.