Are Republican House Candidates Allowed To Be Gay For Pay? Let's watch This One Play Out In CA-26

Last year CA-26-- a Southern California congressional district that includes Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village at the upper end of the San Fernando Valley plus most of Ventura County, including a bit of Simi Valley, plus Moorpark, Camarillo, Santa Paula, Oxnard and Fillmore-- gave Hillary a landslide victory over Trumpanzee: 57.9% to 36.0%. Obama had beaten McCain there, 56-41% and beaten Romney 54-44%. The PVI went from D+4 in 2015 to D+7 after the election. The district has a lousy congresswoman, pointless New Dem careerist Julia Brownley. ProgressivePunch rates her crappy voting record a very solid "F." Despite being an utter waste of a blue seat, she's expected to easily win reelection. As of the September 30 reporting deadline she already had $2,447,043 in her warchest. There are 4 Republicans wasting their time running against her-- Antonio Sabato Jr., Shane Skelton, Jeffrey Burum and Rafael Dagnesses, with Sabato, a Trumpist former porn star, underwear model and low-grade actor leading the pack.

Conservatives feel uncomfortable with Sabato, who more a fascist than an actual conservative and... well, he used to have sex with men on film for money-- and conservatives feel funny about that. Yesterday, the L.A. Times gave Sabato his moment of glory with a story by Seema Mehta. "Antonio Sabato Jr.," she wrote, "is best known as a soap opera star and Calvin Klein underwear model. But parts of his acting career are raising eyebrows among some conservatives as the Republican and early supporter of President Trump runs for Congress in California." Local Republicans "are saying movie roles in which Sabato simulated sex with a man and appeared nude disqualify him from representing the GOP." Republicans prefer gay sex in the closet, not on the silver screen. Sabato was born in Rome but his family moved to the U.S. when he was 13. He likes to call himself an immigrant who supports the wall and he's proud of his ugly bigotry, having insisted that Obama was a Muslim. To make upper his gay pornography he's dated loads of women and knocked up as many as possible and has children with several unmarried women. He's generally considered a filthy pig by anyone who knows him.

Ret. Air Force Maj. Jeffrey Burum, another Republican in the race, deemed the movies “pornography” and called on Sabato to end his campaign.

“His behavior is inconsistent with anything I would want from a congressional leader. It’s also inconsistent with a party which has always favored traditional family values, which do not include porn,” Burum said.

Sabato and his campaign disputed the description of his work as pornographic.

Charles Moran, a Sabato advisor and the former president of California Log Cabin Republicans, said that while Ventura County may be more conservative than neighboring Los Angeles County, many people in the entertainment industry live there and are unlikely to care about Sabato’s previous roles.

“They know what it takes to be a successful actor in the industry, and anybody trying to make Antonio Sabato Jr.’s career and job choices salacious does so without really knowing the value of the craft,” he said, predicting the controversy would have no impact on the race. “For a long time, gays have played straight, straights have played gay. A good actor can do this, and many do. Antonio Sabato Jr. is no different.”

Sabato noted the movies Testosterone and Deadly Skies, which were both filmed more than 10 years ago, are part of a three-decade-long acting career.

“I’ve done many movies. I’ve done things I’m proud of and things I’m not so proud of, that’s just the way any actor works,” he said. “They don’t know what kind of congressman I’ll be, the work ethic I have.”

Sabato, 45, is best known for roles on General Hospital and Melrose Place in the 1990s, and The Bold and the Beautiful from 2005 to 2006. He has appeared in many other scripted television shows and movies, music videos and reality programs.

As first reported on the Ventura County website Citizens Journal, Sabato’s critics are protesting his roles in two films where he plays a gay man.

In 2003’s Testosterone, Sabato plays an Argentine man who mysteriously deserts his writer boyfriend. He appears fully nude in the film.



Three years later, Sabato played an Air Force officer who was dismissed under the military policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in Deadly Skies. The film, about an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, contains a scene where Sabato appears partly nude and simulates having sex with another man.

Unlike films that would traditionally be considered pornography, the movies starred mainstream Hollywood actors, including Jennifer Coolidge, Michael Moriarty, David Sutcliffe, Rae Dawn Chong and Sonia Braga, and don’t comprise solely sexual content. Testosterone premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was reviewed by the New York Times, which described it as “a shaky comic noir larded with soft-core sex.”

...Sabato is a vocal supporter of Trump and spoke on his behalf at the Republican National Convention in 2016, efforts that he said have hampered his acting career.

“I was blacklisted from Hollywood,” Sabato said, adding he had no regret for supporting Trump and has been to the White House since the election.

“I’m proud of our president. Look at everything he has been able to do in such a short amount of time,” he said.

Critics also note that Sabato posed for Playgirl magazine. He appeared on the cover and inside a 1993 issue devoted to “Soap Studs.” He did not appear nude and was covered with strategically placed bubbles.

So polite! And prudish! Who do we think we're fooling here? Even if Sabato's heart belongs to Trump now, it's well known that he used to put out for modeling jobs and TV roles and did dozens of gay porn movies and photo shoots. He would be a perfect Republican candidate. I hope he wins the GOP primary and runs against Brownley. She deserves him!