The over-hyped response by the opponents of the gay rights bill cost them at least one vote last week.

When Joe Dunn took his seat on the House floor Tuesday morning, he had every intention of voting against the hotly debated gay-rights bill that would be put before him later that day.

The Naperville Republican, who also represents the DuPage County section of Aurora, reasoned that “voting his district” would mean voting “no.”

“The conservatives who support me demand it,” he remembers thinking. “and I should represent them.”

But as Dunn sat back and listened to his colleagues from both sides of the aisle debate the issue, he slowly began to reconsider what he was about to do.

“I was just really turned off by what was coming out of the mouths of some of my fellow party members,” he said of the conservative Republicans who were trying to derail the bill. “I just didn’t like the hatred and bigotry and intolerance I was hearing.”

One downstate Republican, Rep. Shane Cultra, went as far as to suggest that, if homosexuals were extended equal rights, pedophiles and people who have sex with animals might as well be given similar legal protections.

Others, including Sen. Peter Roskam — a Republican from Wheaton who represents parts of Aurora, North Aurora and Batavia — argued incorrectly that the new law would require churches that see homosexuality as a sin to hire gay ministers.

“It was just disgusting, what they were trying to do,” Dunn said.

Read the rest of the story. It’s pretty good, and a cautionary tale for the right wing.