Cool Site of the Week/Joe.My.God.: Sen. Chambliss Apologizes to Joe for Staffer's Anti-gay Threat

Blogger, Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God.

After the senate Republicans successfully scuttled the vote on this year's Defense Authorization Act, which contains language to repel DADT, a comment appeared on the popular blog, Joe.My.God, saying "All faggots must die." The commenter signed it only as "Jimmy".

Joe Jervis, the award-winning New York blogger behind JMG is not one to take something like that lying down. With the help of some contacts, Jervis was able to trace the IP address to the Atlanta  Senate Offices of  Republican Saxby Chambliss. You can follow the leads here.

Jervis reported yesterday that he received a personal phone call from Sen. Chambliss apologizing for the actions of his staffer. Joe was not going to let him off the hook so easily. Following is Joe's account of the conversation:

CHAMBLISS: "Joe, I don't know if you're Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, but none of that should matter. Because what was said on your blog by someone from my office is just not acceptable, no matter who is saying it and who it's being said to. I just want to offer my sincerest apologies. There has been some talk about how long it's taking to find the person behind this, but we just wanted to be very careful and handed this off to the Senate Sergeant at Arms, because this is going to seriously impact somebody's life and we wanted to make sure we got this right. So again, I just wanted to call you and personally apologize."

JMG: "Thank you, Senator. I do appreciate the call and I do accept your apology on the condition that your office issues a public statement repeating what you've just said to me. I'd also like the disposition of your staffer's job status to be made public."

CHAMBLISS: (Speaking to someone in his office: "Has that gone out yet?) "Joe, I believe our statement is ready and will be going out this afternoon."

I love it! Joe totally rocks! This is why I he's one of my favorite bloggers. He doesn't take any shit and never backs down. For all of these reasons -- plus getting a homophobic asshole fired -- I am bestowing Joe.My.God. the coveted Cool Site of the Week award. JMG was one of the first queer blogs I discovered a few years ago. Joe inspires me every day to dig deeper and go farther than I otherwise might do. Mazel tov, Joe!

MSNBC's Keith Olberman also weighed in on the story and had this to say:

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