News (USA)

GOP chair called LGBTQ+ people “groomers” & for Pride flag burnings. He got what he deserved.

Colorado Republican state party chair Dave Williams speaks during the Colorado Republican Party's state assembly at the Southwest Motors Events Center on Saturday, April 6, 2024.
Colorado Republican state party chair Dave Williams speaks during the Colorado Republican Party's state assembly at the Southwest Motors Events Center on Saturday, April 6, 2024. Photo: Zachary Allen/The Pueblo Chieftain / USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN

Dave Williams, a former state representative who was elected to lead the Colorado Republican Party last year, has been voted out by his party members for attacking fellow Republicans and posting homophobic statements.

Williams was voted out on Saturday, two months after dozens of state Republican Party members signed a petition to hold the vote. Michael J. Allen, a Republican district attorney in Colorado Springs, told the told the New York Times that about 88% of the 182 or so eligible members voted for the motion at the Saturday meeting to remove him.

“There has been an open revolt to his leadership of the party across the state,” Allen also said, adding, “It has been an accumulation of things at the expense of party unity and real electoral progress.”

Williams has called LGBTQ+ people “evil” and “woke creeps,” He also wrote that all Pride flags should be burned, saying, “We make no apologies for saying God hates Pride or Pride flags, as it’s an agenda that harms children and undermines parental authority.”

Williams’ emails have also referred to LGBTQ+ Americans as “barbaric,” “creeps,” “degenerates,” “godless,” “groomers,” “predators,” “radicals,” and “reprobates.”

He lost his primary to a more moderate candidate in an upset that other Republicans said was due to Williams’ extremist views and causing divisions within the party.

Williams was previously criticized by Valdamar Archuleta, president of LGBTQ+ conservative group Log Cabin Republicans of Colorado. Archuleta said that Williams was “alienating a large group of people within the party. Not just LGBT people, but our friends, our allies, our families. This was a massive mistake. We need to work on unifying the party and growing the party, not isolating people with divisive messages like this.”

In true modern day GOP fashion, Williams has said that the election was a “sham” and that a “real” meeting will be held next Saturday, and “the results that follow will be the only ones we respect,” according to the The Times.

Like Williams, former President Donald Trump claimed that his defeat during the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.” He and other GOP candidates have since begun claiming that any election outcomes they don’t like are the result of corruption and vote rigging and are, thus, invalid.

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