June 13, 2024 12:21 PM UTC

Hate Crimes at the Behest of the Colorado Republican Party

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve been discussing in this space the bonkers (okay, EXTRA bonkers) direction that the Colorado Republican Party has taken recently under State Party Chair Dave Williams. As we noted last week, the hateful words coming from the State Republican Party about Pride Month are being heard and acted upon. We understand that some readers may be tired of seeing this story, but it’s important to keep pointing out that hateful words can lead to hateful actions.

Angeline McCall reports on the latest for 9News:

For the past four years, Mike Horan has hung a Pride flag outside of his Lakewood home during the month of June. He’s never had any issues until June 9, when two masked men came to his home and stole the flag.

In the surveillance video, the men arrived around 3 a.m., removed the flag and then flipped off the camera. It appears they had already stolen another flag prior to arriving at Horan’s home…

…He noticed the missing flag the next morning when he woke up.

“I noticed my flag was gone so I pulled up the Ring camera and there was the footage of a few gentlemen stealing the flag,” said Horan.

Within two minutes of stealing the flag, they returned with a note written on toilet paper. On one side, it had a racial slur. On the other, a homophobic slur written. [Pols emphasis]

Horan reported it to Lakewood Police the same day. He asked that they consider it a hate crime due to the note that was included.

Yikes! Coming back to leave racial and homophobic slurs for the homeowner is a significant escalation from what was reported last week by Fox 31 News.

ICYMI, last week Williams signed a mass email that went out to Colorado Republicans titled “God Hates Pride,” and later called on people to literally burn Pride flags that acknowledge the LGBTQ community. Many Republicans are now pushing for Williams to be removed as State Party Chair, and a considerable amount of money is being spent to prevent him from winning a Primary Election in CO-05 against fellow Republican Jeff Crank. But in the meantime, Williams’ hateful speech — no doubt part of a strategy to increase turnout for his own race in CO-05 — is becoming an increasing concern for regular Coloradans.

Attorney General Phil Weiser has said that this kind of behavior may indeed cross over into “hate crime” territory. The GOP’s anti-Pride messaging has become national news, and those stories are going to get worse for Republicans if this “flag violence” continues to escalate. More importantly, however, is that this story seems to be escalating from disgusting rhetoric to a potentially dangerous situation — all of which is directly traceable back to the Colorado Republican Party. 

Hopefully this madness stops before any possible confrontations related to the big Denver PrideFest event on June 22. Any related violence would absolutely be blood on the hands of Williams and everyone who enables him.

For more on this topic, check out the latest episode of the Get More Smarter Podcast: