A local Republican politician from Massachusetts says he could hardly believe it when one of his colleagues launched a homophobic smear campaign against him and tried to have him primaried.
Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette is an openly gay Trump-supporting member of the Massachusetts’ Republican State Committee currently running for the 2nd Congressional District.
But when Debbie Martell, the Republican state committeewoman, got wind of the fact that he and his husband, Julian, were the fathers of not one but two adopted children, she almost threw up.
The Boston Globe has obtained emails that allegedly show Martell telling numerous people that she’s “sickened” by the fact that a member of their own party is a h-o-m-o-s-e-x-u-a-l.
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In the emails, Martell says she’s hoping, “God willing”, that somebody–anybody!–will primary Sossa-Paquette in his bid for Congress and save them from his life of sin.
“After all, I hear he’s a married homosexual man,” she allegedly wrote. “That sickens me that he adopted his children.”
Fellow Massachusetts Republican Debbie Martell has launched homophobic attacks against me and my family.
Bigotry has NO PLACE in the Republican Party.
Demand that Debbie immediately resign ?https://t.co/8iyaQN86VC
— Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette (@JeffreyCongress) June 3, 2021
“As a proper Republican, I must stand up and do my part to say this is unacceptable,” Sossa-Paquette tells local media.
But when he reached out to the state party’s chairman, Jim Lyons, for help, he says Lyons wouldn’t intervene.
“His answer to me was he wasn’t going to get involved in inter-party politics,” Sossa-Paquette explains. “And I said inter-party politics? You’re the chairman of the MassGOP. Are you not supposed to be running the party?”
So Sossa-Paquette went to vice chair/COVID-denying anti-masker Tom Mountain, who says he called Martell and asked her to resign.
“What she did was wrong,” Mountain says. “It was immoral. We don’t have any room in the party for such things. And I’m not going to put up with it.”
But so far Martell has yet to resign. And a spokesman for Lyons said he was “not interested” in talking about the matter. So it looks like Sossa-Paquette is on his own.
“This does not represent the Republican Party that I’ve defended for the last 20 years of my life,” he says. “I’m not going to tolerate any bigotry coming out of my own party or the Democratic Party.”
It may not be the Republican Party Sossa-Paquette has known, but it’s certainly the one the vast majority of LGBTQ people have experienced over the past several decades.
Sossa-Paquette has since launched an online petition demanding that Martell resign immediately and calling on Lyons to do more about the hatred and homophobia that plagues the Republican Party.
Somehow we don’t think that’s gonna happen.
Graham Gremore is the Features Editor and a Staff Writer at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter @grahamgremore.
BoomerMyles
Martel won’t resign.
Instead she’ll be hailed a hero by the greater republican party.
Cam
Reminds me of when Caitlyn Jenner acted shocked that the GOP wasn’t treating her the same way after she came out as Trans.
The GOP is nothing more than an excuse for bigotry, hate, and lining it’s donors pockets. So I don’t want to hear about how these Gay Republicans are SO SURPRISED, when the party acts like exactly what it is.
Fahd
Sossa-Paquette is not going to win his primary, I predict.
I’m shocked he’s so shocked that a bunch of Massachusetts Republicans are also rabid homophobes.
What is wrong with this guy that he’s a Republican?
rocmond
I’m surprised he is surprised. Have you not heard the parable of the farmer and the snake. It’s her nature. Sorry, not surprised.
Chrisk
I was thinking of the frog and the scorpion.
ptn2719
For the life of me, I don’t understand gay Republicans. If you don’t know by now that the Cult of Trump (formerly the Republican Party) has no room for us, well, wake up and smell the coffee!
Ronbo
My uncle, a gay Republican, values wealth above all else. He lives in Palm Springs all alone with his grapefruit tree in a one-bedroom mid-century modern.
D_Bro
@Ronbo – sounds like a lonely life.
ted
LOL, oh he’s serious… ?
Bosch
“This does not represent the Republican Party that I’ve defended for the last 20 years of my life”
Is he from a parallel dimension or something?
Kangol2
The gay Republican consultant who helped elect horrendous homophobes like Jesse Helms and Bob Smith, and also allegedly helped craft the anti-gay marriage policies during the W Bush years, Arthur Finkelstein, was from Massachusetts. OF course like a typical Republican, once progressive activists had secured the right to same-sex marriage, he went right out and married his male partner!
Chrisk
He must be thinking of the old days when they just said it behind your back.
Ronbo
@Kangol
Who helped the neoliberal Democrats push, pass and sign DADT and DOMA? Hillary campaigned and championed “Marriage will ALWAYS be between one man and one woman,” through her first presidential run.
Sometimes we need to look deeper than just the label. Extremists bigots make regular bigots look acceptable. They aren’t. LOTE is still evil.
1898
i have zero sympathy for this guy. the official GOP platform literally says “marriage is between one man and one woman.” by running as a republican he is endorsing that platform and promoting the idea that all same-sex marriages should be invalidated, including his own
Jimmy
He’s an idiot. That entire GOP is nothing but confused, opinionated jerks who bow to a moron like Trump. I say Eff You to Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette. I say Eff You to Debbie Martell, the Republican state committeewoman. I say Eff You the entire GOP!
Chrisk
Jimmy
I agree. If he’s a trump licker then that means he’s the typical I’ve got mine and f*ck the rest. He just thought enemy of my enemy are my friends. Except he’s so wrong on that.
WillParkinson
Honey, bigotry IS the Republican party.
Heywood Jablowme
The district in question did elect a moderate Republican back in the ’90s but he was defeated by the current Democratic congressman, Jim McGovern. They’re never going to go for a Trumper – even a gay one, lol.
Kangol2
The GOP used to have moderates like Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, John Lindsay, etc., who were actually socially moderate–and in some cases more liberal and progressive on social and economic issues–than conservative Democrats. They are now like the dodo bird, mostly extinct, except in a few cases (Susan Collins, who nevertheless did repeatedly vote with the treasonous Don the Con etc.). Even in liberal states like Massachusetts and New York, you have far-right wing Republicans and Q-razies like Martel, and it’s only getting worse. The Don the Con fanatics, talevangelicals, neo-Nazis and so on, have taken over that party. When you have a party whose Senators will not overwhelmingly support an investigation into an attempted coup and attack on the Congress and a Vice President of their own party, you know you are not dealing with sane, sensible, rational people.
Heywood Jablowme
Exactly – the governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, is an anti-Trump Republican who has won two terms but is very UNpopular in his own party.
seansimpson
All the power to him – well, not *all* the power – for being a gay man in the Republican Party. I don’t get it, but you do you, sis. The thing that I find curious is how he seems surprised at comments made by his colleague. He must have insulated himself so well from the anti LGBT rhetoric, or maybe was an exceptional fundraiser – $$$ gets things done, including people not harassing you. It feels a bit like intentional ignorance when it’s all said and done about how “this doesn’t reflect republican values,” it most certainly does.
Max
“…openly gay Trump-supporting member…”
oxymoron?
Polaro
There was a time when the republican party stood for some legitimate ideas, a few I even liked. They no longer do. They have become a cult of Trump, and he is a deranged and dangerous tyrant. This clown still thinks there is a place for a gay man in the republican party. He thinks they will come to his defense because he is one of them. He is so very wrong.
cuteguy
The GQP is homophobic?!!
Hi, I’m Earth. Have we met?
Leash
“This does not represent the Republican Party that I’ve defended for the last 20 years of my life” LOL wtf
JJinAus
What an idiot.
BaltoSteve
I’m seeing these comments about being surprised by him being surprised. Sorry, that’s not me. That is S.O.P. for the Gay Republican. There is a severe cognitive disconnect in them. I guess it’s a survival mechanism. After all, if you have a pet that is sentient, do you really want your pet to know it’s a kept animal?
Roy Moss
Sossa-Paquette is just another piece of right-wing garbage and deserves every bit of abuse he gets from both the left and the right.
Dijonaise
If you are a Gay Republican, you can eat a bullet.
arnieca
Queerty, once again my comment was put into moderation limbo. Can you please address why this keeps happening? Thank you.
It’s par for the course that the Rep. party is not going to stand up for their own candidate against a homophobic attack in Mass. any more than they would in Teas.
What is shocking is something worse happened to a Mass. Dem running for congress in the last election. Alex Morse was a gay candidate for congress. And some college students launched a false homophobic smear campaign against him. Not only did the Mass. Dem. Party not discourage the students, it coordinated the attack with them.
Now, the reason is Alex was challenging a very prominent Dem. congressman Robert Neal. But regardless just as the Reps in used homophobia to discredit one of their own, the Dems did the same but at the party level.!!!
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D_Bro
What a moron. “Bigotry has NO PLACE in the Republican Party”??? Where the f#ck has he been? The Rebugnican party is full of bigotry! That’s the main thing holding it together.