Rep. Kris Hansen said she has received threatening voice mail and email messages from opponents of the measure she sponsored to overturn Missoula's gay rights ordinance.

Hansen, R-Havre, said she has been accosted by people opposed to her stand in public places.

The phone messages and emails have been turned over to Helena police, she said.

"... Why don't you stop spreading hatred, intolerance and bigotry against people and their loved ones?" said a recent message, left on her personal cellphone.

"The Bible says you reap what you sow, and you and your loved ones are going to get that hatred back, and who knows what might happen to you," the anonymous male caller said, finishing the message by calling Hansen an obscene name.

Rep. Wendy Warburton said she too has received obscene phone calls and has twice had her car pelted with eggs.

Warburton, also a Republican from Havre, said she couldn't say for certain that the egging had anything to do with her support of Hansen's legislation, but given the circumstances "it does seem rather suspicious."

Political leaders on both sides of the aisle have condemned the threats.

Hansen said she has been confronted by opponents of the legislation — once at the championship basketball game between Montana State University-Northern and Carroll College, and again at a Helena restaurant.

"My reaction to the personal confrontations were to listen," she said. "I listened to both of them and tried to be calm. One man, however, I had to escort out of the restaurant because he was making a scene to everybody around. I believe as an elected representative that people are entitled to tell me their opinions.

"However, when you approach me in a restaurant where I am engaged in a discussion with others, you are not entitled to shout at me and use expletives and tell me you can't believe you even have to breathe the air I breathe," she said. "That is unacceptable, and displays a hostility and incivility that can't be tolerated."

Warburton and Hansen have also opposed repealing state law which declares homosexuality illegal. The legislation had been overturned by the Montana and U. S. Supreme Courts, but remains on the books.

They also voted against blasting a tabled bill out of the Judiciary Committee, on which Hansen and Warburton both sit, that would have added protection from discrimination for gays to the state Human Rights Act.

Hansen said she played a tape of the threatening message at a House Republican caucus. Fellow lawmakers were supportive, and several burly members offered to escort her in public, she said.

The harassment has been condemned by people on both sides of the political aisle, even those who strongly support the Missoula ordinance.

Rick Dow of Havre, a conservative activist, and Havre resident Karen Sloan, who frequently disagrees with Hansen's conservative positions on social issues, wrote a joint letter to the editor of the Havre Daily News condemning the attacks.

Dow and Sloan have attended weekly video conferences with legislators sponsored by the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce and the Havre school district. The talks have sometimes turned acrimonious in recent weeks as social issues are discussed but have remained within the bounds of common civility.

"Those who threaten their fellow citizens in order to intimidate them into silence are engaging in a kind of terrorism which undermines the greatness of our system of government," Dow and Sloan wrote.

State Rep. Bryce Bennett, a Democrat from Missoula who is openly gay, said he opposed resorting to threats in political discourse. Bennett has been a leader in the effort to defeat Hansen's legislation overturning his hometown's ordinance.

"Threats to anyone are unacceptable," Bennett said in a Twitter message sent to his 300 followers. "We have disagreed fervently many times in this legislature, but we have always been respectful."

Locally, political leaders said they were upset by the threats.

"This is just unacceptable," said Hill County Republican Chair Andrew Brekke.

"If they want to send busloads of people to defeat her, that's their right," he said. "But this goes beyond the bounds."

Brekke said if a Democrat were being threatened in a similar matter, there would be a bigger public outcry by Democrats.

County Democratic Chair John Musgrove, a former state legislator, said he was concerned by the comments.

Though he strongly disagrees with many of Hansen's votes — both on gay rights and cuts to social programs — he deplores the threats, calling them "a sad sign of our times.

"Everyone should condemn this kind of behavior," he said. "In the end, no matter what our political differences, we are more alike than different."

Warburton said several male lawmakers have told her they also have received similar threats but have been reluctant to come forward.

She said she would continue to fight "homosexual activists and lobbyists" despite these threats and actions.

"It's one thing to disagree with what a particular legislator or political party in the Legislature is doing," she said. "But it's quite another to propagate slurs, lies and threats."

Hansen's legislation to overturn Missoula's anti-bias ordinance passed the House on a largely party-line vote, but it has been tied up in a Senate committee. An effort to force a vote in the Senate floor was turned back.

The effort to repeal the state's ban on homosexuality was approved by the Senate, but rejected in the House Judiciary Committee. Hansen and Warburton voted to uphold the ban. An effort to force a House vote on the matter was defeated 51-47 this morning, apparently ending any chance for repeal this year.

"At this point, I am discouraged and frustrated by a lack of toughness on the part of Senate leadership," Hansen said. "This bill is a pro-business bill. It is also a bill that protects businesses from a disjointed conglomeration of discrimination laws outside the scope of the Montana Human Rights Act."

Click here to hear an audio clip of one of the voice messages received by Rep. Hansen.