Ex-Lawmaker Wants 'Immoral' Gay People Disqualified From Teaching

The ever-predictable Gordon Klingenschmitt strikes again.

A former Colorado state representative has cited troubling claims against a Minnesota teacher as evidence that LGBTQ people, as a group, should be barred from the teaching profession.

In December, police wrapped a four-month investigation into Aric Babbitt, a former teacher at Lincoln Center Elementary School in South St. Paul, Minnesota, and his husband, Matthew Deyo, who worked in information technology at the same school. The investigation found that Babbitt, 40, and Deyo, 36, had sexual contact with eight underage boys over several years, The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported at the time. Though the men were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide in August 2016, police conducted the investigation in anticipation of “pending civil legal action,” possibly against the local school board, according to the report.

The case’s grisly and disturbing specifics only served as ammunition for former legislator Gordon Klingenschmitt on the Jan. 9 episode of his “Pray In Jesus Name” radio program, however. Klingenschmitt, who was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 2014 but failed in his 2016 state senate bid, pointed to Babbitt and Deyo’s case while arguing that gay people should be “disqualified” from becoming teachers because of their sexuality.

“There is a demonic spirit of child abuse,” he said in the Right Wing Watch clip above. “The demonic spirit of deception has taken over the school board, or whoever decided ― maybe the principal ― to hire these child abusers,” he added.

No stranger to anti-LGBTQ declarations, Klingenschmitt then added, “If anything, they should’ve been disqualified immediately because of their immorality. The immorality inside of these two men [indicates] that they are unfit to be a good example to little children.”

As cringe-inducing as Klingenschmitt’s statements are, they aren’t particularly surprising given his history of taking a homophobic stance on recent news. Last month, he blasted a Zales Jewelers commercial that featured a same-sex couple, saying the ad was proof that the television and advertising executives who produced it were possessed by a “demonic spirit.” In 2015, he blasted the Boy Scouts of America for “thumbing their nose at God” when the organization lifted a controversial ban on openly gay adult participants or, in his words, promoting “homosexual men to mentoring and camping with your boys.”

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