Montana Tea Party Leader Endorses Violence Toward Gay People

by Michael Jones · 2010-09-03 07:51:00 UTC
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Social media is rife with gotcha moments. From Sarah Palin's "refudiate" comment, to an Iowa GOP politician suggesting that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality, the gaffes on Facebook and Twitter seem to come a mile a minute. Add Montana Tea Party leader Tim Ravndal to the list.

In July, after the ACLU filed suit in Montana arguing that the state needed to provide some measure of domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples under Montana's constitution, Ravndal took to his Facebook page to spread some anti-gay sentiments. (Check out the photo of this below, courtesy of Michael Hand.)

"Marriage is between a man and a woman period!" Ravndal declared, adding a news article about the ACLU's action and a closing comment of "By giving rights to those otherwise would be a violation of the constitution and my rights."

The logic there is a bit dumbfounded. Allowing two people who love each other to get married somehow violates Ravndal's constitutional rights to ... what? No, seriously. Gay marriage will affect Ravndal's love life in what way?

But beyond the perplexing logic, it's the comments by some of Ravndal's friends that garnered the most attention, including a dude named Dennis Scranton, who agreed with Ravndal's assessment of gay couples and then added: "I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions."

Wyoming, you'll remember, was the scene where in 1998, Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and hung up in a field. Shepard died several days after he was found.

The horror in all of this could have been limited to Scranton's comment. But Ravndal extended a Tea Party endorsement to the type of violence that claimed the life of Matthew Shepard, by commenting on Scranton's words. "Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?"

Cue the new platform of the Montana Tea Party: hang gay people up to die, then laugh about it.

Only the type of violence that Ravndal and his friends are laughing about is sick and disgusting, not funny and hilarious. Hate crimes against LGBT people are at alarming rates, a full twelve years after the life of Matthew Shepard was tragically cut short. And to riff off of Shepard's death, as if it were improv class? Tactless. No party, Democrat, Republican or Tea Party, ought to find that funny.

Though in Montana, as we've noted before, the official GOP platform calls for homosexuality to be criminalized. Apparently Big Sky Country has a heterosexual-only policy, at least as far as the GOP -- and now, apparently, the Tea Party -- is concerned.

Check out Ravndal's Facebook status update image below, with a h/t to Andy Towle at towleroad. The image below? It comes courtesy of Michael Hand.

Photo credit: blmurch

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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