Note: A quick shout-out to the Detroit Metro Times, who did some absolutely fantastic original reporting. These guys are what journalism is all about. Take a moment to go read their original article, then come back here and read our version, making fun of this whole situation.
Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan state Rep. Bryan Posthumus’s legislative career has centered on protecting what he calls “traditional family values,” yet his name appears in leaked data from Ashley Madison, AdultFriendFinder, and Fling.com, according to records verified through publicly available cybersecurity databases. The accounts were accessed while Posthumus was married to his first wife, between 2011 and 2012. The accounts listed preferences including threesomes, group sex, and submission, details that political analysts noted were absent from both his campaign literature and his Christian Coalition award acceptance speech.
Bryan "Traditional Family Values" Posthumus in the flesh. (Michigan House Republicans)
The Ashley Madison profile used an email address and home address linked to Posthumus and listed his relationship status as “attached male seeking female.” The account’s written response field contained the phrase “I love when a woman takes charge and seduces me.” Political strategists noted this deviated somewhat from his public stance on gender roles and leadership. Staffers familiar with traditional family values said these values typically do not include the phrase “I love when a woman takes charge and seduces me” on websites designed for extramarital encounters.
Posthumus’s information also appears on AdultFriendFinder, last accessed in 2012, and Fling.com, a pornographic dating site that promised users they could “find sex” and “get laid tonight,” two terms that generally represent a different constituency than the Christian Coalition. Or do they? The Fling.com account listed top interests as “fetish,” “group sex,” and “online flirting,” as well as sexual preferences including “threesome,” “being dominant/master,” “being submissive/slave,” and “one-night stands.” The account indicated interest in men, women, or couples, which political scientists technically classify as “a big tent approach.” Campaign strategists said such inclusivity typically plays well with moderate voters, though usually not in this exact context.
The 41-year-old lawmaker serves as majority floor leader in the Michigan House of Representatives. He has voted against repealing the state’s 1931 abortion ban that lacked exceptions for rape or incest, against removing criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortions, against expanding protections for LGBTQ+ residents, and against banning conversion therapy for minors. In 2022, the Christian Coalition of Michigan gave him its “Friend of the Family Award” for his “strong defense of family values.” Posthumus said at the time that he was “honored to receive this recognition,” though he did not specify which family. Sources close to the Christian Coalition said the organization defines “family” as “a traditional married couple,” raising questions about whether multiple Ashley Madison encounters would require multiple awards or just one particularly large one.
In response to questions, Posthumus’s attorney John C. Burns called the allegations “categorically false” and accused Metro Times of producing a “hit piece” and “nothing more than a thinly veiled political attack masquerading as journalism.” The letter suggested that “a disgruntled former employee” or political opponent could have created the accounts.
Cybersecurity experts reviewing the theory noted that such fabrication would require the disgruntled party to obtain Posthumus’s credit card information, his exact birth date, his personal Gmail address that matches candidate filing records, and the home address of a property he and his then-wife purchased in 2011. Burns also did not explain how a disgruntled employee would have accessed this information in 2011, nearly a decade before Posthumus held elected office. Political strategists called this “either remarkable foresight by opposition researchers, or just regular foresight by a person interested in extramarital encounters.”
Posthumus married his first wife, Stacy, in March 2012. The Ashley Madison account was accessed several times between March and September of that year, using the site’s mail and chat features. Stacy Posthumus filed for divorce in early 2014. Court records do not indicate whether Ashley Madison played any role in the divorce proceedings, though attorneys familiar with Michigan family law called the timing “probably not coincidental.”
Well, maybe not "completely" anonymous… (thelampnyc/Flickr)
Posthumus remarried in 2022 to Elizabeth Posthumus. Since then, he has been accused of living outside his House district on two separate occasions. He attributed this to wanting to stay close to his wife’s family while maintaining a Cannon Township condo for district residency. One official, speaking on background, noted that Posthumus “seems to have figured out how to be in multiple places at once, which would have been useful information for his first wife.” Constituents appreciated the explanation, though some questioned the logistics of maintaining multiple residences when he apparently had trouble maintaining monogamy in any of them.
Posthumus is part of one of Michigan’s most prominent Republican political families. His father, the unfortunately named Dick Posthumus, served as lieutenant governor under Gov. John Engler from 1999 to 2003. His sister, Lisa Posthumus Lyons, serves as Kent County clerk and register of deeds. Neither has commented on the revelations. Family friends reported that holiday gatherings have grown “complicated,” with one describing the atmosphere as “less Norman Rockwell, more Norman Mailer.”
The three-term lawmaker has been convicted of drunk driving twice: once in 2013 and again in 2021, the latter while serving as a state representative. He spent 15 days in jail following the 2021 conviction. For his 2013 conviction, Posthumus’s license was temporarily suspended, which friends say at least made it harder to drive to motels. Apparently, he managed it somehow. Traffic safety advocates noted that Posthumus had difficulty with both vehicular and romantic boundaries, though they acknowledged the comparison was somewhat reductive.
In November 2024, Posthumus and West Michigan Hopyards, the hop farm he co-founded, were sued in federal court by a migrant worker alleging wage theft and labor-law violations. The suit claims worker Jose Magana Garcia was denied full pay, forced to go weeks without compensation, and lacked access to bathroom facilities while working long hours on the 33-acre farm. Posthumus and his business partner called the allegations “politically motivated” and “frivolous,” a legal strategy they appear to be expanding to all inconvenient facts.
Last month, Republican state Rep. Josh Schriver, who introduced legislation to ban online pornography statewide, was also found in leaked data from Fling.com with a profile listing interests including “fetish” and “groupsex.” Schriver denied having the account. Political commentators observing both situations suggested Michigan Republicans had adopted an unusual regulatory approach: extensive personal investigation of industries they planned to prohibit. One political scientist called this “the pornography researcher’s dilemma,” then immediately retracted the characterization as “giving them way too much credit.”
The Michigan House is currently in recess. A spokesman indicated lawmakers would return to their work of “upholding family values.” The spokesman did not define “traditional,” “family,” or “values,” leaving constituents to wonder whether these terms maintained their dictionary definitions or had acquired new meanings involving threesomes and submission preferences. It additionally remains unclear if “traditional” still means “one spouse at a time” or has expanded to include “one spouse at a time plus several anonymous internet strangers.” The spokesman also did not elaborate on whether “upholding” meant “publicly advocating for while privately violating” or represented a different interpretation. He also did not address whether the House would develop new ethics guidelines, though several representatives were observed quietly Googling “what counts as a conflict of interest if you’re the interest in conflict?”
Ethics committee members have reportedly already begun drafting new guidelines, though early versions kept getting stuck on the phrase “do as I say, not as I do,” which legal counsel said lacks enforceability even if technically accurate.
Several legislators reportedly requested IT department consultations about whether previously deleted Ashley Madison accounts remain truly deleted, or whether that horse has left the barn, driven to a motel, and filed for divorce.
