Staff Reports
Top Romney Surrogate Compares LGBT People to Drug Users and Polygamists
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| Kansas Secretary Of State Kris Kobach |
TAMPA, FL -- Kansas Secretary of State and Mitt Romney surrogate Kris Kobach compared LGBT people to drug users and polygamists while debating the GOP platform’s marriage equality language Tuesday in Tampa.
While arguing against an amendment that would have ended the party’s support for the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, Kobach said:
“Our government routinely judges situations where you might regard people completely affecting themselves…like for example the use of controlled substances, like for example polygamy, that is voluntarily entered into. We condemn those activities even though they are not hurting other people, at least directly.”
Kobach's comments drew immediate critisim from the Human Rights Campaign's Vice President of Communications Fred Sainz,
“Kris Kobach’s remarks are offensive and just the latest sign that the GOP platform is being influenced by people who certainly do not speak for the majority of Republicans,” said Sainz. “It’s time for leaders within the GOP to take some responsibility and realize that their outdated platform – and the incendiary and vitriolic language used by some of their colleagues like Kris Kobach – sends a dangerous message and has a very real impact on the LGBT community, particularly youth.”
Kobach, who is perhaps best known for using fear tactics to spread his anti-immigration agenda, employs similar tactics when it comes to matters of LGBT equality. In 2004 he claimed that HRC and other LGBT organizations supported “homosexual pedophilia.” Despite these remarks, Mitt Romney was quick to embrace Kobach’s endorsement earlier this year – saying he was “so proud to earn Kris’s support” and was pleased to “stand with this true conservative.”
Kobach’s remarks come a day after the GOP’s draft platform revealed that the Republican Party that the GOP 2012 platform would not only reject marriage equality, but will push for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and stripping rights from legally married same-sex couples, and call for a vigorous defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
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1 comments:
That is not reporting up to your usual standard. The quote says:
“Our government routinely judges situations where you might regard people completely affecting themselves…like for example the use of controlled substances, like for example polygamy, that is voluntarily entered into. We condemn those activities even though they are not hurting other people, at least directly.”
The quote makes no reference to LGBT people at all. Your reporter os standing too close to the topic. An outsider can look at this article and suggest that you are conflating LGBT people and this comment. You need to link the quotation directly and positively(!) to the man's condemnation of LGBT people in the same speech for this article to stand up.
I know the man holds these attitudes, but you have to report them better to make the link definite and unambiguous
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