Newly Elected Florida Governor Under Fire for Playboy Connections

The Miami-based Christian Family Coalition is calling on Governor-elect Rick Scott to "stop selling pornography to Latinos."

At the center of the CFC's concerns is QuePasa.com, an online social-networking site aimed at Latinos.  Scott reportedly owns a substantial number of shares in the online venture.  But, according to Politifact, the QuePasa group maintains a working partnership with Playboy Mexico:

Quepasa and Playboy began partnering in 2009 to find and identify "Cyber Chicas" for the magazine's Mexico edition. Quepasa created an online community that features models wanting to be included in Playboy. Users of the website can go to the Playboy community to vote for and rank the women. Three finalists are forwarded each month to Playboy, which selects a winner. A 24-year-old Brazilian, Fernanda Schonardie, was selected as the first "Cyber Chica" and was featured in a full-page layout in the March 2009 edition of Playboy México.

During his campaign for governor, Scott highlighted his investment in Quepasa.com to show ties to Florida's Hispanic voter population.  At the time, CFC drew attention to the company's work with Playboy and called on Scott to cut his ties with the company.

Now, CFC is continuing to press on with the issue.

"We cannot have a governor in the state of Florida that invests in companies that sell pornography," Rev. Mark D. Boykin said, a Boca Raton minister associated with the group, tells Naked Politics. "We are asking that before he takes the oath of office, Gov.-elect Scott gets rid of his stocks from QuePasa Corporation. The governor of the state of Florida should not be benefiting or have an interest in pornography. It goes against our family values."

In addition, CFC objects, Quepasa.com includes a section for "homosexual sex partner relationship networking."

The governor-elect has not commented on the CFC's latest campaign, but defended his association with QuePasa.com during the campaign and accused his political opponents of pushing the issue.