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LGBTQ NEWS - Mississippi state Sen. Jeremy England (R) defiantly stood up to an anti-LGBTQ+ Twitter user and raised over $1,600 for the American Cancer Society after the Twitter user called him a “groomer” and posted a 2020 picture of England wearing a pink outfit and tutu.
England appeared in a political ad supporting the re-election of Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann (R) over Hosemann’s opponent Chris McDaniel (R). In response, Hardy Case, a McDaniel supporter, posted the 2020 image and wrote “Hosemann and his groomer weirdos don’t have a chance on August 8th,” the date of the state’s Republican primary election.
In a public Facebook post, England wrote that, in 2020, he wore the “embarrassing” costume and carried a donation bucket while trick-or-treating with his kids around the neighborhood on Halloween night to raise money for the breast cancer awareness program Real Men Wear Pink.
“We raised thousands of dollars, including money I collected from the good people in my neighborhood,” England wrote. “My kids loved it. It was a blast. And truth is, I would don that costume again in a heartbeat to raise money for breast cancer awareness!”
England said he was “receiving threats” and “being bullied” since Case posted the image and insult online.
“I have no shame in the pictures being shared,” he added. “I only wish it was being shared to help raise money for breast cancer awareness as intended.”
However, to make the best of a bad situation, England’s Facebook post included a link to a new fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. As of Monday afternoon, he has raised $6,205 of his $10,000 goal.
Case told the Mississippi Free Press, “I deleted the tweet when I fully understood the context and would like to wish him the best of luck.”
However, in a July 20 tweet, Case wrote, “Using cancer as a gaslight, to say I can’t have freedom of speech to say a man shouldn’t dress like a woman, is a bit absurd and Un-American…. I had a friend die from stage four cancer last year, and her last days could’ve been better, had she had access to cannabis. But I’m not going to dress up as a woman in front of children and ask for money. It’s that simple.”
Many of Case’s other tweets refer to Hosemann as “Satanic,” “groomer,” “globalist weirdos” (a phrase with anti-Semitic undertones), adding that “Christians must vote out Hosemann.”
In one tweet, Case wrote, “If Delbert Hosemann continues to promote grown men sticking their rear-ends up in the air while wearing dresses and potentially exposing male private parts to Mississippi children, then that’s on incumbent Delbert Hosemann. Sounds a bit reckless to me. There’s a more Christian way to go about raising awareness for issues in Mississippi, if Delbert Hosemann would embrace Mississippians in the first place, instead of his Washington lobbyist donors and their globalist agendas.”
Republican state legislators introduced at least 31 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in Mississippi during its latest legislative session. LGBTQ+ advocates told Mississippi Today that Hosemann may have fast-tracked the bills through the state’s senate to fend off political attacks that he is not as “conservative” as his challenger, McDaniel.
(Daniel Villarreal is a longtime journalist, webmaster of DanielVillarrealWrites.com and an educator who has written for Queerty, The Seattle Stranger, Vox, Slate and many other publications. This article was featured in LGBTQ Nation.)
