Evan McMullin
Evan McMullin isn’t gay (as far as we know). But his mom and her wife are. And Evan, a Mormon, says that while he believes in the “sanctity of traditional marriage,” he loves and respects his mother. That may not seem like any big news, except that McMullin is running as an independent candidate for president, and it looks like it is possible that he might win Utah’s electoral college ballots.
Apparently that’s got Donald Trump and his supporters in a bit of an uproar. (I can’t vouch for this site, but I’m including the link for the screencaps of Tweets included in it and the vitriol in the comments, both of which support the idea of “an uproar.”)
McMullin was formerly chief policy director for the House Republican Conference in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has also been a CIA operations officer, a volunteer refugee resettlement officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan, as well as an investment banker. For many of the folks in Utah — and Mormons elsewhere, supposedly — he is a better choice for president than either Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
And the Trump camp is taking McMullin seriously enough that Trump supporter William Johnson of California this week unleashed a barrage of robo-calls lambasting McMullin’s relationship with his lesbian mother and suggesting that the independent candidate is, himself, “a closet homosexual.”
The robo-call says: “Hello, My name is William Johnson. I am a farmer and a white nationalist. I make this call against Evan McMullin and in support of Donald Trump. Evan McMullin is an open borders, amnesty supporter. Evan has two mommies. His mother is a lesbian, married to another woman. Evan is okay with that. Indeed Evan supports the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. Evan is over 40 years old and is not married and doesn’t even have a girlfriend. I believe Evan is a closet homosexual. Don’t vote for Evan McMullin. Vote for Donald Trump. He will respect all women and be a president we can all be proud of.”
The robo-calls supposedly cost Johnson $2,000 and will go out to 193,000 households in Utah between Monday night, Oct 31, when they started, and Wednesday night, Nov. 2.
When Daily Beast asked him to back up his claims, Johnson responded via email: “Wikipedia tells his story [about his mother]. Also, if you Google him, it readily comes up. I said that ‘I think he is a closet homosexual.’ Calling someone a homosexual is no longer defamation. Also, he is a public figure. Word on the street is that he is gay.”
So. Here at Dallas Voice, we are not surprised to see a Trump supporter trying to gay-bait another candidate. In fact, after lo these many years, we aren’t surprised to see any Republican candidate or their surrogate trying to gay-bait another candidate. What bothers me, though, is the fact that this guy is SO VERY PROUD TO CALL HIMSELF A WHITE NATIONALIST, and that’s not making headlines!
(In case you aren’t sure, Mirriam-Webster defines “white nationalist” as: “one of a group of militant whites who espouse white supremacy and advocate enforced racial segregation.”)
Johnson isn’t trying to hide the fact that he is a racist bigot. I mean, he starts out his damn robo-call describing himself as a “farmer and a white nationalist.” And this isn’t the first time. In February, he paid for robo-calls on Trump’s behalf in Vermont and Minnesota urging voters not to vote for “a Cuban” (Marco Rubio) and to not be afraid of being called racist and to protect against the “gradual genocide of the white race” by electing Trump.
According to information published by Daily Beast, in September 2015, Johnson, as leader of the American Freedom Party, donated $250 to the Trump campaign, and shortly after established the American National Super PAC to start making robo-calls supporting Trump in Iowa. Then when asked about the contribution at a town hall in New Hampshire, Trump told the questioner “Don’t be so angry about it,” and said his campaign would return the donation. And they did return it.
BUT ….
The Trump campaign has not returned the two donations, totaling $1,500, that Johnson made to Trump in June this year. And Johnson told Daily Beast he believes he has actually donated more than that — close to the $2,500 limit.
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks on Monday told CNN the Trump campaign “strongly condemn[s] this rhetoric and these activities of which we have no knowledge.”
