Meet the Delusional Anti-LGBT GOP Candidates Who Won Super Tuesday in Texas
“Obama has a soft spot for homosexuals because of the years he spent as a male prostitute in his twenties. That is how he paid for his drugs,” says one.
The Loon Star State certainly lived up to its reputation on Super Tuesday — and not just because GOP Sen. Ted Cruz won Texas’ Republican presidential primary. Â
A state school board candidate who believes President Barack Obama once worked as a male prostitute advanced to a runoff, while an anti-Clinton conspiracist and author who claims President George H. W. Bush is a “homosexual pedophile” and killed President John F. Kennedy (or at least knows who did) was elected chair of the local Republican Party in Austin. Â
Meanwhile, an openly gay Republican county clerk in East Texas was defeated by a candidate with an extensive criminal record, after local media declined to report on her rap sheet. And GOP congressional candidate Michael Bob Starr, who was attacked by opponents for participating in military LGBT Pride runs while commanding an Air Force base, finished in third place and out of the runoff in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, according to preliminary results.Â
Retired teacher Mary Lou Bruner, who recently doubled down on her claim that Obama “has a soft spot for homosexuals” because he spent years as a male prostitute in his 20s, captured 47,536 votes — the most among three candidates — in the race for the District 9 seat on the State Board of Education, which sets curriculum standards for public schools throughout Texas.Â
Bruner believes Obama is a “homosexual/bisexual”.
She’ll likely be on the Texas State Board of Education. pic.twitter.com/RgvyR99mOv
— Casey Michel (@cjcmichel) March 2, 2016
She also believes it “is a goal of United Nation’s agenda 21 and the One World Order to reduce the population of the world by 2/3.”
And Robert Morrow, who’s said Bush, Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Marco Rubio are all gay, captured 54 percent of the vote in his bid to become the next GOP chair in Travis County. However, immediately after Morrow’s victory, the vice chair of the Travis County GOP vowed to prevent him from taking over.Â
“We will explore every single option that exists, whether it be persuading him to resign, trying to force him to resign, constraining his power, removing his ability to spend money or resisting any attempt for him to access data or our social media account,†Matt Mackowiak told The Texas Tribune. “I’m treating this as a coup and as a hostile takeover.â€
“Tell them they can go fuck themselves,” Morrow responded, before taking the Tribune‘s reporter to task for not saying the “N-word” when asking about his use of the racial slur on social media.Â
Lamar County Clerk Russ Towers, who proudly issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, would have been the first gay Republican candidate elected to public office in Texas history, after being appointed to the position last year. However, Towers was narrowly defeated by Ruth Sisson, who ran on a platform of “family values” but has written 44 bad checks totaling over $2,000, in addition to allegations that she tried to stop her daughter from dating a black man.Â
“I kind of lose faith in humanity that they would hire a thief over me, but what’s done is done,†Towers told me, calling the local media’s failure to report on Sisson’s rap sheet “unfair.”
In the West Texas congressional race, Lubbock Mayor Glen Robertson, who ran a disgusting ad accusing Starr of being supported by the “radical gay lobby” — which he said includes The New Civil Rights Movement — was the top vote-getter in Congressional District 19. Robertson advances to a runoff against Jodey Arrington, who narrowly edged out Starr for second place.Â
Fortunately, the news was not all bad in Texas on Super Tuesday.
Pioneering LGBT state Rep. Mary Gonzalez, (D-El Paso), survived a challenge from an anti-gay candidate who’s under investigation for voter fraud. And Dave Wilson, a longtime anti-gay activist in Houston, captured just 12 percent of the vote in his bid to unseat Democratic state Rep. Jessica Farrar, a staunch LGBT ally.Â
Moderate “establishment” Republicans also fended off tea party challengers in several key races for Texas House, which amounts to a major victory for the LGBT community heading into next year’s legislative session.
But in a sign of how bad things have become in some parts of the state, rabidly anti-LGBT state Rep. Debbie Riddle, who believes public education “comes from Moscow” and has warned about “terror babies” launching sleeper cells, was defeated by a candidate who painted her as too liberal. Â
Â
Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr and a CC license
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
