WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia came under fire Friday from civil rights activists who demanded an apology from the conservative Democrat after he equated his party’s opposition to the nomination of a conservative African-American judge to a lynching. Miller — who has already rankled Democrats by endorsing President Bush for re-election — refused to apologize.

“…Conservative African-American women need not apply. And if you have the temerity to do so your reputation will be shattered and your dignity will be shredded. Gal, you will be lynched,” Miller said….

“I think it sums up the situation accurately.”

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Miller then explained that while Justice Janice Rogers Brown hadn’t literally been dragged from her home in the middle of the night by an angry horde, sentenced without trial, had epithets scrawled on her abdomen, and been hanged by the neck until dead before a crowd of torch-bearing vigilantes, the connection between the situations was clear.

“His comments were inappropriate and offensive,” said one civil rights activist, in effect bending Miller forcibly over a pool table and raping him repeatedly.

But the violent treatment of the conservative Democrat didn’t end there. Later that day, Miller was brutally beaten and dragged behind a metaphorical pickup truck over several miles of bad road when Senator Tom Daschle said, “I was offended. I think it was unfortunate.”

The beatings and gang rapes continued this weekend as several Democrats also weighed in and asked for an apology. In effect, his fellow Democrats proceeded to frog march Zell Miller out into the middle of the woods, forced him to dig his own grave, placed a shotgun in his mouth, and fired.

But Miller was unbowed. “The tragedy here does not lie in my floor speech this morning. The tragedy lies in what is happening in the United States Senate to this highly qualified conservative, African-American jurist,” he said as he metaphorically hung high above the Senate floor, bleeding profusely from a spear wound under his ribs, his hands pinned by sturdy nails to the cross behind him.

The cross, with Miller still on it, was figuratively set ablaze later that evening, according to witnesses. It was not immediately known whether Miller’s testicles had been rhetorically hacked off and stuffed in his mouth before the moment of his metaphorical demise, but allegorical Senate officials are looking into it.