For Pride Month, Alabama Mayor Suggests ‘Killing Out’ The LGBTQ Community, Plus Maybe Socialists
An Alabama mayor is under fire after incendiary comments that he posted on Facebook directed towards the LGBTQ community, among others, CBS News reports. Mark Chambers, the mayor of Carbon Hill, Alabama, made the comments just as Pride Month kicked off. He has since made a statement to the local newspaper, the Daily Mountain Eagle, insisting that he has no intention of resigning despite the growing national backlash stemming from his comments.
Local politicians formally requested the mayor’s resignation in a city council meeting on Tuesday.
In a now-deleted post on Facebook, Chambers decried a number of left-leaning positions on social and political issues from homosexuality to abortion.
“We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics!” he said.
In a follow-up comment, Chambers took the line of thinking further, suggesting that the only solution is to “kill the problem out.”
“The only way to change it would be to kill the problem out,” he said in the comment. He also took the opportunity to indicate that he saw no other opportunity for the country to move forward and be fixed of what he seems to see as deep and divisive issues between the left and the right.
Alabama mayor recommends "killing" LGBTQ community in a now-deleted Facebook post https://t.co/mhGGMXoFlo pic.twitter.com/Q6t6qOER3w
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 4, 2019
The post was first reported by Birmingham television station WBRC.
The backlash on social media was swift, with many condemning the major and demanding his immediate resignation.
In a telephone call with WBRC, Chambers at first denied writing the post. Later on, he would walk back that statement, ultimately admitting that he had written it but claiming that he had intended to send a private message rather than a public post.
He claimed that he had never said anything about “killing out gays” but did allude do a potential revolution in the country which could involve killing.
Later he took to Facebook to issue an apology, claiming that he did not intend to target the LGBTQ community with his comments.
“If anyone knows Alabama mayor Mark Chambers, I have a real offer for him: Come have dinner with me & my LGBTQ family. I won’t ask about your Facebook post. I do ask that you come with an open mind. At the end of the night, look me in the eye and tell me if you still wish me dead,” tweeted one Twitter user, sharing an article about the controversy.
