GOP Homophobes Step Into KKK Rhetoric
The post generated a furor within the Michigan GOP, with some Republicans calling for Agema, a former western Michigan state representative, to resign and/or apologize. Other GOP stalwarts endorsed the former lawmaker and added their name to an online petition urging him to stand firm.
But the story took a huge right turn Friday night when information was published that showed the Agema version of homosexuality was based, in part, on the observations of a Ku Klux Klan member, a white supremacist.
So, here is the situation for a party that is in post-election contrition, trying to portray itself as more inclusive and open-minded than in the past: A new poll shows that half of the party’s most ardent Michigan supporters embraced a homophobe who got some of his outdated, outlandish information from an admitted gay-hater and racist.
Overall, here are some of the claims in the Facebook post: 37 percent of homosexuals engage in sadomasochism, 60 percent say they have had sex with strangers in “bathhouses,” about 80 percent of homosexuals are infected with sexually transmitted diseases, and the average gay person has between 20 and 106 sexual partners per year.
Agema’s answer to those who denounced this deplorable smear: “Some people don’t like facts.”
But eight points made in the essay that Agema posted were based on the vitriol espoused by Dr. Edward Fields, a non-practicing chiropractor from Marietta, Ga., and a prolific hater of Jews, blacks and gays.
According to the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, Fields is a Holocaust denier who has been “active in white supremacist and anti-Semitic groups since he was a teenager in the late 1940s … a significant force in the racist world” of the South. As recently as January, former KKK leader and infamous Louisiana GOP politician David Duke interviewed Fields on his Internet-based radio show. One subject: Jews and homosexuals taking over the world.
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