September 27, 2024 09:27 AM UTC

Analysis: Anti-Gay Threads Run Though Congressional Candidate Gabe Evans’ Adult Life

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Originally posted at the Colorado Times Recorder

“If gay marriages are allowed, the institution of marriage will have been redefined to include all of the perverted and immoral practices mentioned above.”

Colorado congressional candidate Gabe Evans wrote those words in a 2004 letter to the editor when he was just 17 years old. The letter is in a TV ad produced by Democrats, and now Evans is saying he’s “matured a lot” and disagrees with the “17-year-old Gabe.”

But there’s evidence that Evans retained his anti-gay beliefs well beyond age 17.

Not long after he wrote his letter to the editor, Evans took a job as a legislative aide for one of the most virulently anti-gay lawmakers in Colorado, state Rep. Ted Harvey of Colorado Springs, who co-sponsored a resolution at the time when Evans worked for him that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

In 2005, after working for Harvey, Evans enrolled at Patrick Henry College, which is a fundamentalist Christian institution unequivocally opposed to LGBTQ rights. It requires students to sign an anti-gay honor code.

“Therefore, marriage is a sacred God-made union between a man and a woman, which is to be separated by no man. It is to model the reverence, love, sacrifice, and respect exemplified by Christ for His bride, the college states on its website. “Husbands are the head of their wives just as Christ is the head of the church, and are to love their wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Human sexuality is a great blessing created by God to be enjoyed within the context of a monogamous marriage between a man and a woman; any sexual conduct outside the parameters of marriage is sin.”

Today, far from denouncing Patrick Henry’s stance on gay marriage — and the college’s equally extreme stance against abortion — Evans continues to embrace the institution. In 2022, he said Patrick Henry College prepared him well for his political career.

In December, he welcomed the endorsement of the college’s founder, Michael Farris, who’s a right-wing conservative and hard-charging opponent of LGBTQ rights.

In 2004, Farris wrote that the “only way that we can stop same-sex marriage from infecting every state is to amend the U.S. Constitution.” In 2003, he also co-authored a Supreme Court brief arguing that gay sex should be “criminally punishable conduct.”

In his 2023 endorsement of Evans, Farris wrote: “If you are a conservative and want to support candidates who will make a difference and not just pay lip service to our cause, join me in supporting Gabe Evans for Congress!”

Evans’ website lists an endorsement by U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who voted against codifying a right to same-sex and interracial marriage. Evans has stated that he’s a member of the Christian Home Educators of Colorado (CHEC), which promotes anti-LGBTQ extremism.

Evans was absent this year when the state House voted on a measure to add an amendment on the November ballot asking voters if they want to remove a ban on gay marriage from the Colorado Constitution.

Evans Not Questioned About His Anti-Gay History

Now Evans, who’s running in Colorado’s most competitive congressional district, is saying he is for gay marriage and will vote this year to remove the language in the Colorado Constitution banning same-sex marriage.

But he has yet to be asked, among other things, why he accepted the endorsement from Farris, whose anti-gay views are well known, and why he hasn’t denounced the bigoted stance of his college — and why he embraces the institution.

Evans’ history, as an adult, and the company keeps, raise unanswered questions and point to his opposing LGBTQ rights.

RELATED: GOP Congressional Candidate Puts His Training at a Far-Right Christian College Into Action.