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Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: Bob McDermott- 2023 Update [1]

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Date: 2023-03-17  

On this date in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Bob McDermott, who has served in the Hawaii House of Representatives since winning office since 2012 (after several years away), who moved to the Aloha State from Pennsylvania and quickly rose in the ranks of the GOP there for his brazen opposition to LGBTQ rights. Bob McDermott was trying to ban gay marriage in Hawaii as far back as 1998, when he served two terms in office before disappearing from the Hawaiian political scene for a decade. In 2014, was trying to still filibuster attempts at legalizing same sex marriage in the state, and falsely claim that Hawaiian citizens voted to ban same sex marriage in ’98.



Among the bills he’s introduced include an amendment to the state constitution to “reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples” (that would be immediately overturned as unconstitutional via the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling), a bill to redefine the term “place of public accommodation” to allow religiously-affiliated organizations including hotels, restaurants, movie theatres, hospitals (!), retail stores, and mortuaries to deny services to LGBTQ people. How self-righteously stupid is it to try something like that in Hawaii? Let’s put it this way…Neither of those McDermott bills has even a single co-sponsor. McDermott has also proposed a bill focused on limiting the Department of Education’s ability to implement sexual health education programs which he hopes will eliminate all mention of LGBTQ people in public classrooms, and is also currently at the forefront of the Hawaii’s GOP’s attempts to prevent their Democratic counterparts from a bill to ban public school teachers from promoting ‘gay conversion therapy,’ a practice discredited by all leading national medical and psychological authorities because it is ineffective, risky, and can be harmful. If you ask McDermott, though, it’s the “gay cure”, which would then mean yes, he views homosexuality as a disease.



No, really, his actual quote is, “The anus is presented as genitalia, just another sex organ. This is another example of forced ‘equality’ by ignoring the natural function of the rectum and anus. Therefore ‘political’ correctness dictates that the male rectum and the female vagina are ‘equal’ in terms of being sexual organs. This totally ignores the obvious facts of human biology and reproduction.”



Of late, Bob McDermott’s fanaticism has begun to even carry over to what few colleagues he has in the state legislature. In early February 2017, the Hawaii GOP voted to oust their own House Minority Leader, Beth Fukumoto, for the grievous offense of having attended a women’s march to protest the presidency of Donald Trump the day after his inauguration. McDermott chastised her for this on the floor of the Hawaii House, saying, “You are speaking not for yourself anymore. It is a high-level responsibility.” At that point, Fukumoto took stock of her party, rallying around a misogynistic orange bigot, and with her main ally being a deranged wild-eyed homophobe obsessed with anuses only slightly less than the mad scientist from the film Human Centipede and opted to switch to the Democratic Party. McDermott continued in his anti-LGBTQ extremism in 2019, voting against a ban on gay conversion therapy and voted against a bill that would establish a non-binary gender option on state IDs.

For whatever reason, he thought he had a chance of winning a statewide election in 2022, and became a challenger to Democratic Senator Brian Schatz. He was, predictably, curbstomped in a statewide election, getting just 23% of the vote, and is now out of office. We hope he stays out of office, and will give him our heartiest “GOOD RIDDANCE” salutes at this time.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/17/2158729/-Fanatical-Republican-Extremist-of-the-Day-Bob-McDermott-2023-Update

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