Alabama mayor suggests 'killing' the LGBTQ community is the only way to 'fix' things, apologizes after backlash
Mayor Mark Chambers of Carbon Hill, Alabama, caused a furore on social media after his posts and comments defending the killing of LGBTQ people went viral. As reported by WBRC, the mayor's controversial comments were further augmented by his responses to his friend's comments reflecting his views.
The Facebook post, which has been deleted, read “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.” His Facebook friend replied in a comment saying "By giving the minority more rights than the majority. I hate to think of the country my grandkids will live in unless somehow we change and I think that will take a revolution.”
In response to this comment, Chambers replied: “The only way to change it would be to kill the problem out. I know it’s bad to say but without killing them out there’s no way to fix it.”
The statements clearly demonstrated that he took a position of eradicating people from the LGBTQ community, socialists, and people who have undergone an abortion. In a telephonic conversation with WBRC, he initially denied that he ever wrote those things. He said: “I don’t think I posted that. I think that’s somebody else’s post.” When asked if someone else had been using his identity to post on Facebook, he said that he did not know and hung up.
He further defended his stance but later conceded that he had indeed written the post but that it was being taken out of context. He added that he made the mistake of posting the comments publicly when it was actually meant to be a private conversation between friends.
Chambers said over the phone that “I never said anything about killing out gays or anything like that” but when his own statement was read back to him he replied by saying “That’s in a revolution. That’s right! If it comes to a revolution in this country both sides of these people will be killed out."
He posted an apology on Tuesday, on Facebook, accepting that it was wrong of him to post such a message and that he has not enough words to regret having done the same. He said that he accepted it was wrong to say that anyone should be killed but he still insisted that his words were taken out of context.
Chambers said he was not concerned about criticism from his constitutes. He said there is only one person in the town who does not like him and that he does not have a problem with anyone.
His statements have attracted widespread criticism. On Tuesday, the Alabama wing of the nonprofit civil rights group Human Rights Campaign released a statement condemning Chambers’ remarks. “This is horrifying, unconscionable and unacceptable,” the statement said. “LGBTQ people face disproportionate levels of violence and harassment in their daily lives ― a fact that is especially true in Alabama, where there are no statewide LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination or hate crimes laws.”
HRC is calling for the mayor to “be held to account” for his actions.