Gay GOP congressional candidate sues fellow Republicans for calling him a ‘paedophile’
Reid Rasner (Facebook/ReidRasnerWy)
A gay Republican candidate for Congress is suing after fellow Republicans accused him of sexual misconduct and called him a paedophile.
Reid Rasner, who is currently running for election to Congress in Wyoming, is pursuing a case against former state senator Austin “Kit” Jennings, who allegedly began a “whisper campaign” saying that Rasner had committed sexual misconduct, Semafor reported.
Rasner said of the accusations: “I’ve never experienced anything like this in my entire life. This just isn’t the Wyoming I knew or thought I knew. The state needs to come to terms with the hate and ignorance that’s fueled death threats and violence against me, all because of my sexuality.”
In addition to the case against Jennings, Rasner is also settling a case against an Iowa Republican who allegedly repeatedly accused Rasner of being a paedophile on a number of his social media posts.
In the aftermath of the accusations, Rasner reportedly shared a video that endorsed “the ultimate punishment” for “anyone convicted of paedophilia”.
Other LGBTQ+ Republicans have praised Rasner for suing for defamation, including Ross Hemminger, who is the president of the LGBTQ+ group Log Cabin Republicans.
Semafor reported that Hemminger said that the suggestion that an out gay candidate was a paedophile “struck him as the sort of discriminatory rhetoric he thought both parties had moved past”.
“I am surprised, because Reid is a very, very conservative person,” Hemminger continued. “Policy-wise, he probably outflanks most people who hold office in Wyoming.”
Rasner shared with Semafor that the rumours had caused him to be shut out of various candidate forums, including the one run by Wyoming Family Alliance, which is opposed to equal marriage.
Rasner is a staunch opponent of trans rights, and previously called gender-affirming care for trans children “child abuse”.
In a video he posted to his official Facebook page on 23 June, he said: “If you’re transitioning your children, that is child abuse and you should lose your parental rights, and that’s pretty cut and dry. Don’t transition your children. They have a voice and a choice. Boys are boys and girls are girls.”
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