Michigan RNC candidate calls for the ‘purging’ of gays from the GOP
First, we had a a Republican National Committee member from Michigan saying that Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay propaganda laws were “common sense.”
When Dave Agema paired that insight with an anti-Muslim post, his colleagues stopped cheering him on and realized that he could blow the millions the Kochs are spending to buy Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat. Republican leaders — which by definition excludes Governor Rick Snyder — said he had to go.
But Agema still hasn’t stepped down.
Now, the GOP has an even more divisive candidate to replace Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land (who quit the RNC after realizing that associating with anti-gay, anti-Muslim Agema was problematic, though she had no problem supporting RNC hero Paul Ryan in his quest to privatize Medicare and Social Security).
Meet Mary Helen Sears who lives at the tip of Michigan’s upper peninsula but couldn’t be further from the tolerant, humanistic attitude that prospers just miles away in Canada.
“Agema thinks that gays live a ‘filthy’ lifestyle; Sears thinks they are the work of the devil,” Macomb Daily columnist Chad Selweski wrote,
In an essay for the Schoolcraft County Republican Party, which you’ll be shocked to find was not written in ALL CAPS, Sears wrote:
Homosexuals make up less than one percent of the total population. They must prey on our children to increase their numbers. Why then, would we, as a party, entertain this perversion? We as a party should be purging this perversion and send them to a party with a much bigger tent. When we lose track of foundational principles we lose the very essence of our party.
Wow. Even Putin doesn’t want to purge Russia of LGBT people. He just wants to make sure they don’t get a sit-com and make gay look fun because homosexuality is apparently very contagious in Mother Russia.
But the fundamental logic behind Sears and Putin’s thought is the same. Gay people are trying to recruit kids. Shouldn’t they be jailed for that? How about camps?
It’s totalitarianism cloaked as religion. Sears is being challenged for her RNC seat by, among others, Ronna Romney-McDaniel — the niece of Mitt Romney.
The former GOP presidential nominee — and star of Mitt!: A Celebration of Mitt Romney Losing — didn’t want to purge gays at all. He — like George W. Bush — just wanted to amend the Constitution to deny the right of same-sex marriage, which is no longer the majority of Americans, EVEN IN UTAH.
With or without Agema and Sears, Michigan Republicans’ policies towards gays and lesbians are offensive. They oppose the right of same-sex couples to marry and adopt. Governor Snyder signed a ban domestic partner benefits and refuses to acknowledge the indignities the breadth of his party’s anti-gay policies impose on our fellow Michiganders.
The LGBT population makes up far more than one percent of our population. And the insinuation that a size of a minority should reflect their rights should be revolting all who value our Constitution. Our friends and our family members are being denied basic human rights that most of us take for granted.
The Michigan GOP may only be dabbling in Putinism, but its disregard for rights should not be acceptable in America.
