The social media activity of a prominent Republican in Tennessee has raised eyebrows. He’s been consistently leaving love hearts and flame emojis on the thirst traps of a twinky, gay Instagram user.
Randy McNally is the 79-year-old Lieutenant Governor of the state. Last week, the Tennessee governor, Bill Lee, signed a new law banning drag performances in front of minors. According to ACLU, the GOP-controlled state is currently moving forward with 26 anti-LGBTQ+ pieces of legislation
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“Equality for everybody, or nobody’s really equal.”
McNally is married to a woman and has two grown-up daughters and grandkids. Despite this, for several months, he’s been posting approving comments beneath the thirsty photo of Instagram user Franklyn McClur. TN Holler was first to break the story and it caught up with McClur to ask him about it.
First, here are screenshots of some of the messages. McNally posted them publicly from his government account.
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In some, he leaves love hearts and flame emojis. In others, he posted comments, even referring to Franklyn as “Finn”, suggesting they may know each other. Under one video of Franklyn dancing in his underwear, McNally says “Love it.”
In another, McNally says, “Finn, you can turn a rainy day into rainbows and sunshine.”
“I just thought he was older and out of touch”
Franklyn, 20, grew up in Knoxville, part of the district overseen by McNally. Franklyn said he’d found it a bit random that the Lt. Gov of the state left messages on his Instagram, but he didn’t think about it too deeply as he’s not very political.
He said he and McNally became friends on Facebook a few years ago through a mutual friend. From there, McNally started following him on Instagram. They have never met in person.
“I just thought he was older and out of touch. I’ve always taken it as a compliment. I don’t dislike him or think he’s a bad person, he’s one of the only people who has consistently uplifted me and made me feel good,” Franklyn said of the messages to TN Holler.
Asked if he thought McNally’s account had been hacked, Franklyn pointed out the fact they’d been Facebook friends since around 2020. McNally had also been leaving messages on his Instagram for several months, and he’d have thought McNally’s team would have worked out sooner if he’d been hacked.
“They would be aware by now if he was hacked. It’s evident he’s not hacked.”
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Franklyn stressed he appreciated McNally’s support, even if he personally didn’t agree with the state’s recent drag ban.
“I don’t hate him, I don’t dislike him. I don’t have a negative opinion on him. I’ve had a transformation since we started talking — I was more Christian, now I’m more not Christian. We were friends back before I was more openly myself. Before I was posting things more mature… If he’s hitting on me it’s real out of touch hitting on me.”
“He enjoys interacting with constituents”
The story has since blown up in the last 24 hours. A spokesperson for McNally has now issued a statement blasting the media for raising questions about the exchanges.
“Trying to imply something sinister or inappropriate about a great-grandfather’s use of social media says more about the mind of the left-wing operative making the implication than it does about Randy McNally,” they said. “As anyone in Tennessee politics knows, Lt. Governor McNally is a prolific social media commenter. He takes great pains to view every post he can and frequently posts encouraging things to many of his followers.
“Does he use the proper emoji at the proper time? Maye not,” they added. “But he enjoys interacting with constituents and Tennesseans of religions, backgrounds and orientations on social media. He has no intention of stopping.”
Cam
Another self hating Republican closet case who likely thought his comments were private.
Mister P
No laws are going to help him control his gay urges.
Man About Town
Franklyn is 20 years old and they’ve been FB friends for 3 years; in other words, since he was a minor. Got it!
Cam
Boom!
Kangol2
Yep!!! Now who’s the “groomer”?
abfab
Will Flow Riddianz still be able to bring their dogs to the groomers?
Will the good ole boys still be able to attend drag racing?
And don’t you dare ask for a drag on my cigarette!
RIGay
Oh, ick. Bile. Bile. Taste bile…
OhHellNo
I called this one years ago. Flaming FOL (“Friend of Lindsey’s”)
preppyesque
As someone who has lived in Nashville all my life, I can truly say how embarrassed and ashamed I am to live and be from here. I have had to overlook so many things that I adamantly disagree with, but feel like I have to to in order to be around my family. The repubs here are absolutely the worst. Thankfully I am a major hell-raiser and sh*t-stirrer and take great delight in coming up with new ways to torture them. As I’ve said for years, the only thing that would help Tennessee (and the entire south in my opinion) is a mushroom cloud.
humble charlie
he did his hetero duty. now he’s going for his homo duty.
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
Pictures and video add ten pounds to anyone. Be that the case the ol’ fart picked a skinny ass toothpick of a Twink to fall in love with. I just don’t see Franklyn as something to write home to momma about. But hey, to each his own.
bachy
Not sure I understand where the controversy is here. Just because Randy McNally finds Franklyn attractive, it doesn’t mean he automatically supports drag performances for children in his state.
Franklyn has a classically ephebic figure. I’ve noticed that largely heterosexual men will make same sex exceptions for males that have this kind of body type.
abfab
Ask Prince.
Openminded
This is sick, even by TN standards. I know, it’s my home state. I can’t believe the Lt. Gov’s not denying that this is him making the comments. I don’t care what party you are affiliated with, NO 76 y/o man needs to be making those comments towards a kid who would have been 17 at the beginning of this “online friendship”, much less continue carrying it on for 3 years. IDK, maybe he’s been to one too many drag shows and just couldn’t help himself.
Kangol2
As Man About Town, Cam and Openminded point out, this right-wing creep Lt. Gov. started friending Franklyn when he was 17, i.e., underage. Yet he and his party are hysterically fixated on non-existent threats to children and teens by out LGBTQ people, particularly LGBTQ drag queens and trans people.
Let’s see if the mainstream media can do the basic math and start asking McNally and his creep cohort some tough questions. “Constituent outreach” ain’t cutting it.
GQP closet queens are the WORST!
abfab
It’s never ending with these people……
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Kangol2
OMG, what? A “life-sized doll”…as I’ve said over and over, we would all be better if instead of run amok with their craziness or trying to (mis)use religion to assuage it these nutcases and phonies would just get real, intensive psychological treatment. It does work. Instead, they plague us like…Covid-19, wreaking utter havoc wherever possible.
Kangol2
Autocorrect put “life” instead of “child”–even AI knows how wrong these people are!
abfab
It was a pro-life bambino.