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CO Councilman leaves GOP after state party's anti-LGBTQ hatefest - "the last straw" [1]

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Date: 2024-06-09  

As the Republican Party continues to try to turn our country into a fascist, hate-filled dystopian hellscape, it's always inspiring to me to see everyday people pushing back. That's what happened this week in Colorado. After the Colorado Republican Party went on a homophobic tirade - horrific even by Republicans' low bar - a city councilman in Aurora announced that he has left the Republican Party and now considers himself unaffiliated.

In a Facebook post, Aurora Councilman Curtis Gardner spells out in no uncertain terms why he's leaving the GOP:

These hateful comments are despicable. I will always choose love - I care less about how you vote than I care about how you treat those who vote differently than you do. I stand with all Aurorans - and that includes those in the LGBTQ+ community. They are our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends and more. The Republican Party, and specifically the Colorado GOP, no longer stands for the issues that I care about - individual rights, fiscal responsibility, restraint of government, limited foreign intervention and encouraging economic mobility. Don't bother posting your "both sides" comments. If you can't call out hate when you see it, or justify it because someone else does it, I can't help you.

Powerful words. In one interview, Gardner said that these hateful words came from a group that he was a part of. He asked himself if he could be part of a group that spread this type of hate. He asked himself if he wanted his children to be around this hate. And his answer was "No."

Gardner told a local TV station that he's not the only Republican in Colorado who will be leaving the party over the next several days because of the Colorado GOP's anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.

"I think this was kind of a final straw for a lot of people... it's become very clear that the state Republican Party is just completely out of control," he said.

As a gay man who has been fighting for LGBTQ+ equality since the 1980s, I've been beyond disheartened to see the rise in GOP-fueled hatred and discrimination against LGBTQ+ Ameticans in the past few years - and to see so many straight people willing to vote for politicians that spew this hate (such as the 60% of Floridians who voted for leading homophobe Ron DeSantis in my state). So I applaud straight allies like Curtis Gardner who are standing up to this hate and speaking out against it, and who are realizing that they can no longer be a part of the Republican Party of hate.

If someone claims to care about LGBTQ+ Americans and LGBTQ+ equality and votes for Republicans this November, then they don't really care about it that much - if at all. Republicans have made it clear that if they control Congress and the White House that they'll go after our community, and Alito and Thomas have stated publicly that they want to overturn SCOTUS decisions on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ Americans' privacy rights.

Here's hoping we see a lot more people follow Curtis Gardner's lead.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/9/2245658/-CO-Councilman-leaves-GOP-after-state-party-s-anti-LGBTQ-hatefest?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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