On Monday, less than 24 hours before Election Day the Log Cabin Republicans announced their endorsement for governor of New Jersey, affixing their seal of approval onto Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who has likened an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum to teaching “sodomy.”
“If #NewJersey is truly to be LGBT-friendly, we need a governor who respects freedom and opportunity and allows us to live our lives without government getting in the way. That is only attainable with @Jack4NJ at the helm,” the Log Cabin Republicans of New Jersey said about Ciattarelli, not in an official announcement but in a tweet.
The national Log Cabin Republicans retweeted the announcement.
Ciattarelli, a state assemblyman from 2011 to 2018, opposed same-sex marriage when it was before the legislature.
In late June Ciattarelli promised supporters that when he’s governor “sodomy” will no longer be taught to 6th graders and promised that “sexual orientation” will no longer be taught to kindergarteners, which they aren’t.
“I feel lucky [our kids] are in their 20s and I don’t have to be dealing with what you’re dealing with right now,” Ciattarelli said. “You won’t have to deal with it when I’m governor, but we’re not teaching gender ID and sexual orientation to kindergarteners. We’re not teaching sodomy in sixth grade. And we’re going to roll back the LGBTQ curriculum. It goes too far.”
In July Garden State Equality called Ciattarelli’s comments “offensive, uninformed,” and “out-of-touch with New Jersey family values—love, acceptance, and compassion.”
“He voted against marriage equality not once, but twice,” they added. “Now, he is trotting out that same hateful, divisive talk that might have helped get him elected decades ago, but his angry, hurtful words are antiquated and should stay in the dustbin of history.”
The head of the activism arm of Focus on the Family, an anti-LGBTQ religious right group, has praised Ciattarelli for being “clear in his objection to the social and sexual indoctrination happening in New Jersey public schools.”