Meshawn Maddock, the co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, took a homophobic swipe at Transportation Secretary and first openly gay Cabinet member Pete Buttigieg via Twitter on Sunday.
“We’re so blessed this weak little girl moved to Michigan!” Maddock tweeted with a video clip of Buttigieg discussing California’s new law banning gas cars by 2035. “Looks like he’s bringing all his California Dreaming here with him.”
Buttigieg, his husband Chasten Buttigieg and their twin children moved from South Bend, Indiana to Traverse City, Michigan in July to be closer to Chasten’s parents, per a spokesperson for the Transportation Department.
Maddock’s tweet reflects the GOP’s nationwide efforts to drag old-fashioned homophobia back into the mainstream as fodder for its culture war hysteria against the LGBTQ+ community ahead of the midterms (a crusade that’s led to a record number of state bills aiming to roll back LGBTQ+ rights).
In Michigan specifically, state Senate Republicans blocked a resolution recognizing June as LGBTQ Pride Month, despite the fact that the measure had the same language as the one that passed last year.
Last spring, Michigan state Sen. Tom Barrett’s U.S. House campaign sent spooky texts to voters with fake appointment confirmations for “your child’s gender reassignment surgery.” Barrett ultimately won the GOP primary for Michigan’s House seat in the 7th Congressional District and will be facing off against Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in November.
And in one particularly clownish stunt a few months ago, several Michigan GOP lawmakers introduced a bill banning K-12 schools from allowing anything that might “expose” students to “a drag show” — even though the lawmakers themselves admitted that school drag shows weren’t a thing.
