Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists

If you ever needed another case of an exemplar of the religious right engaging in depraved behavior that s/he has spent his/her life decrying and passing legislation against*, then look no further than GOP Congressman Vito Fossella of New York.

According to Ontheissues.org, Fossella is a “hard-core conservative” who voted for mandatory school prayer in public school, is a hard-liner on reproductive rights, and has the following ratings from the following advocacy groups:

Americans United For Separation of Church and State - 0%

Human Rights Campaign (Pro-LGBT) - 0%

NARAL Pro-Choice America - 0%

National Right to Life Committee (”Pro-Life”) - 82%

Christian Coalition (Pro-Theocracy) - 81%

But aside from Rush’s drug use or Larry Craig’s Minneapolis lavatory trysts, this story probably takes the cake. According to the New York Times, Fossella got drunk as hell at a local watering hole and got pulled over with a blood alcohol level of 0.17%, three times the legal limit.

Mr. Fossella was asked to recite the alphabet between the letters D and T. “The subject immediately started and said ‘A, B,’ ” the officer wrote in his report. After the officer explained the test again, Mr. Fossella started: “D, E, F, H, G, H, I, J, L,” and then was able to finish.

As a result, the Congressman may have to spend a mandatory 5 days in jail. But suspicions arose of an extramarital affair when Fossella, possibly still drunk, called a woman by the name of Laura Fay rather than his wife to pick him up from the police station while claiming that he was going to go see his 3-year old daughter. One thing led to another, and Fossella eventually admitted not only to the rumored extramarital affair, but that also said 3-year old daughter was a love child between himself and Laury Fay.

According to the same NY Post article, Fossella’s wife no longer sees him as a muscular, gun-toting bull-riding conservative family values man-hunk but rather a bespectacled latte-sipping NPR-loving liberal swinger who drives a Prius, and rumors are that she plans to leave him.

*If you’re wondering why I omitted Mark Foley, it’s because he was actually quite socially moderate even for the GOP - he was endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans and even voted against defining marriage as between a man and a woman; clearly his case is another matter.