"Was it Trent Lott who was hounded out of office because he had something nice to say about Strom Thurmond?"

Nice? Sure...then he added a bit...
"...When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."

Nice reasonable fellow, Mr. Lott...who represented the bigoted views of many of his constituents quite well.

"In 1998, Lott caused some controversy in Congress when as a guest on the Armstrong Williams television show, he equated homosexuality to alcoholism, kleptomania and sex addiction. When Williams, a conservative talk show host, asked Lott whether homosexuality was a sin, Lott simply replied, "Yes, it is."