Inhofe's porn-gate.

It seems there is nothing like a good sex scandal to hammer some sense into antigay politicians. Just days after the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported that aides in Sen. James Inhofe's office had downloaded massive quantifies of Internet pornography, Inhofe announced that he would drop his threat to block all nominations by President Clinton.

The Oklahoma Republican made the threat after Clinton employed a rarely used executive privilege during Congress's Memorial Day recess to make philanthropist James Hormel the first openly gay U.S. envoy. Inhofe had led an 18-month battle to block Hormel's nomination as ambassador to Luxembourg even though a majority of senators indicated they were prepared to approve the nomination.

Inhofe said he dropped the threat because Clinton had written to Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) saying that he "made it a practice to notify Senate leaders in advance of our intentions [on nominations] in this regard, and this precedent will continue to be observed."

But gay rights groups jumped on Inhofe's scandal nonetheless. The pornographic material was found during a routine check of his office computer system. Roll Call reported that there was such a huge volume of sexually explicit material that it had "messed up the senator's computer system." The newspaper did not describe what kind of X-rated material was found.

"Senator Inhofe's staff should have used their highly honed Internet skills to download the Constitution instead of pornography," said David Smith, communications director for the gay lobbying group Human Rights Campaign, in a press release. "They would have learned that there isn't a constitutional right to place a hold on nominations."