Colorado GOP walks back State Rep. Klingenschmitt’s hate speech on Boy Scouts, not on trans military service

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On Tuesday, Colorado State Representative Gordon Klingenschmitt took to YouTube to discuss the military and the Boy Scouts. Namely, the ending of the bans on transgender servicemembers and gay scout leaders. He was quite distressed:

There’s a lot of nasty, vile stuff in there. Klingenschmitt, who was previously best-known for comparing President Obama to a demon, repeatedly denies the existence of transgenderism; calls transgender servicemembers sick, confused and possessed; and cites my least favorite Bible verse to argue that transgender servicemembers should be kicked out of the military.

But that’s not what got him into trouble. Only when Klingenschmitt turned his attention to the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to lift their ban on gay troop leaders did he draw the attention of the Colorado Republican Party. As Klingenschmitt said:

Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt, screenshot via YouTube

What they’re going to do is promote homosexual men to mentoring and camping with your boys in the woods, and it will lead to child abuse. The children are in danger…

…”Whoever causes one of those little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” This is what Jesus said about child molesters. If you’re going to cause a child to sin, it’d be better if you just had a millstone hung around you neck and you were drowned.

Klingenschmitt was alluding to the same tired, hateful trope that put Scott Walker in hot water recently — that gay men are predators who want to molest your kids.

Yesterday, the Colorado Republican Party condemned Klingenschmitt’s comments concerning the Boy Scouts, saying in a statement: “We strongly condemn Gordon Klingenschmitt’s highly offensive comments. As we’ve said in the past, Gordon does not speak on behalf of the Party, nor do his words reflect our Party’s values.”

That they have to remind readers that they’ve been forced to distance themselves from Klingenschmitt before is particularly telling. Not as telling, however, as the fact that the party only felt compelled to distance themselves from one half of Klingenschmitt’s hate speech.

After all, Klingenschmitt called transgender people predators in the video right along with gay men, calling on viewers to oppose ENDA because it was a “bathroom bill” in disguise that would allow men into women’s bathrooms to assault women and children. There no difference between that accusation of pedophilia and the one against gay troop leaders, so why was Klingenschmitt condemned by his party for one and not the other?

Calling groups people pedophiles with zero evidence is worthy of condemnation, regardless of the group of people in question. That the Colorado Republican Party felt obligated to defend gay troop leaders but not transgender servicemembers shows that their obligation was political, not moral.

I’m not impressed.

from AMERICAblog News http://ift.tt/1fLsolf