Former Florida House Speaker and current U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio is set to headline a fundraising dinner next week for the Florida Family Policy Council, reports Waymon Hudson in The Huffington Post.  The Florida group is closely tied to the national anti-gay organization Focus on the Family.  (A collection of anti-gay policy positions and talking points is available on the group’s Web site.)  Writes Hudson:

The Florida Family Policy Council is also one of the main groups behind Florida’s anti-gay Amendment 2, the “Marriage Protection Amendment”, that passed in 2009 and enshrined discrimination into the Florida constitution by not only banning same-sex marriages, but also civil unions and any other relationship recognition for gay Floridians. The group has also constantly opposed efforts to repeal Florida’s ban on gay and lesbian people from adopting. Recently, the group succeeded in getting the Florida legislature to pass one of the most restrictive women’s choice policies in the nation, requiring that they view an ultrasound before getting an abortion.

This is who Rubio is choosing to speak to during his now three-way race for Senate with newly-minted “independent” Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek.

Also scheduled at the event is the presentation of a “Lifetime Achievement Award” to honor Don Wildmon, the founder of the American Family Association, one of the most active and right-wing religious hate groups in the United States.

This is who Marco Rubio honors. These are the people he is “palling around with” as he seeks to move to a powerful Senate seat.

Rubio has always been an extremist. He led the fight for the regressive policies that have placed Florida so behind the times when he was speaker of the Florida House and obviously seeks to continue to court the far-right hate groups that seek to impose their personal biases on the rest of the nation as he seeks a Senate position.

Sharing the marquee with groups like the Florida Family Policy Council and American Family Association and honoring men like Don Wildmon shows just where Rubio’s views and “values” lie.

Rubio’s opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist, dropped out of the Republican primary to run as an independent for the Senate, and polls show Crist now leads Rubio and the presumed Democratic nominee, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek.  It’s not clear whether a run to the right is the smartest political strategy Rubio could employ given the shakeup in the race.