Watch: 'Trumpian' Michigan Political Ad Decried as 'Homophobic'
A pro-equality organization has decried a political ad targeting an openly LGBTQ congressional candidate. The group says the television ad, which calls the candidate "creepy," is "Trumpian" and promotes untrue homophobic tropes.
Among the anti-LGBTQ stereotypes, the ad plays to are suggestions of pedophilia and sexual predation.
The Victory Fund, which promotes LGTBQ candidates for political office, issued a release on Oct. 1 in which they condemned a televised attack ad targeting Jon Hoadley, who is currently a state representative for Michigan but who is running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives against incumbent Fred Upton.
The ad - which the release says is "part of a $500,000 media buy" from a Republican super PAC - cherry-picks quotes from Hoadley's social media posts and other sources, taking them out of context and distorting their meaning, the Victory Fund says.
In one post, Hoadley had talked about talking to patrons of a bar to learn about crystal meth and its impact on the LGBTQ community, the release says. "Now the attack ads portray the quote as him using crystal meth," the Victory Fund release says.
In another distortion, the ad culls the phrase "a four-year-old wearing a thong" - words spoken not by Hoadley, but by someone with whom he was discussing the problem of children being hypersexualized. "The phrase has been removed from context to imply that Jon is a pedophile, an accusation that has been repeated multiple times in many ways by the NRCC and pro-Upton operatives," the release says.
The ad similarly distorts Hoadley's satirical use of the word "breeders," which in some LTBQ circles is used to refer to heterosexuals. The ad suggests that his use of the word proves Hoadley is a misogynist though the word typically carries no gender distinctions, the Victory Fund says.
The attack ad even resorts to citing a poem Hoadley wrote while in college and published in the student newspaper that refers to a "sexual conquest," in an attempt to paint Hoadley as a predator, the release alleges.
"In media statements, Upton has attempted to shift the blame to outside political groups yet for months has refused to condemn the attacks, giving implicit permission for the attacks to continue," the release alleges.
Victory Fund CEO and President Annise Parker slammed Upton for "running the most homophobic campaign in America," and said that the incumbent's "refusal to denounce these Trumpian tactics makes his self-righteous calls for 'civility' look absurd."
Parker added: "Fred is so embedded in Trump-land that he can no longer differentiate between the typical rough and tumble of campaigning and the politics of hate he claims to deplore."
Annise's critique echoed comments from an earlier Victory Fund release from September in which the group called out Upton for it called his "efforts to use horrifying anti-gay stereotypes to define" Hoadley.
This is not the first time Upton's campaign has come under scrutiny for alleged distortions of Hoadley's words. A fact check by Michigan newspaper the Detroit Free Press found that a television ad from the Upton campaign claiming that Hoadley had "voted to defund the police" was mischaracterizing the vote in question. The fact check determined the claim to be "untrue."
Watch the attack ad below.