The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

On Friday afternoon, Twitter followers of Allen West, a strongly anti-gay Republican representative from Florida, may have been surprised to see him retweet a message sympathetic to the LGBT community. The message, originally tweeted out by the lead singer of Scissor Sisters, an alternative pop band with a huge LGBT following, referenced Tracy Morgan's homophobic rant from last week:

Dear Tracy Morgan's son: if you are gay, you can TOTALLY come live with me. We'll read James Baldwin & watch Paris is Burning. xxANA

Soon after, the retweet was deleted, replaced by a new message from West, the Tea Partyer who opposes same-sex marriage and repeal of DADT and said last week that "gay marriage" is an oxymoron. The message, which has since been deleted, read:

Very sorry for the unauthorized RT. We were not hacked, an intern made an error and it has been corrected. Apologies to all.

The correction, apparently, was firing the intern, who had been managing West's Twitter account while the congressman was traveling. I hope the intern's name surfaces soon; despite the total irrelevancy of the tweet to West's job or political views, the intern should be commended for making West sweat.

A week after Anthony Weiner's tweets heard 'round the world - and exhaustively, obsessively debated by nearly every blog and newspaper out there - the moral here should be clear for Allen and other politicans: Start being better about your Twitter account.

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