{"id":2945,"date":"2018-08-08T15:29:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T15:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/democrats.org\/blog\/2018\/08\/08\/icymi-buzzfeed-news\/"},"modified":"2024-05-23T20:18:23","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T20:18:23","slug":"icymi-buzzfeed-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-buzzfeed-news\/","title":{"rendered":"ICYMI: BuzzFeed News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">**ICYMI**<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/dominicholden\/republican-jason-lewis-compared-gay-people-to-rapists&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1533828830214000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHW5Mfyj2OKhgKWgmjUkMclKVVilg\" href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/dominicholden\/republican-jason-lewis-compared-gay-people-to-rapists\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BuzzFeed News<\/a>: Republican Congressman Seeking Reelection Once Compared Gay People To &ldquo;Rapists&rdquo; And Other Criminals<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">By Dominic Holden<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Rep. Jason Lewis, who is running for reelection in Minnesota&#39;s 2nd District, has offered the Republican Party&rsquo;s go-to line on opposing same-sex marriage since he was elected to Congress in 2016 &mdash; that the decision should be left to states.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But before then, Lewis promoted extreme opinions about gays and lesbians on his radio show, comparing them to rapists, criminals, and polygamists. He contended that gay rights activists were &ldquo;shredding the Constitution&rdquo; and that same-sex parents &ldquo;could harm the kid.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">On the <a data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v%3DWPzd2Z97xhg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1533828830214000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHbwxe_KyEElQK7QshcEILDPpaVHA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WPzd2Z97xhg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&ldquo;Jason Lewis Show&rdquo; in 2013<\/a>, he argued it was acceptable to single out gay couples with discriminatory marriage bans, just as rapists and speeding drivers could be targeted by criminal laws. But if a court ruled the 14th Amendment&rsquo;s Equal Protection Clause granted same-sex couples the right to marry, he said, that would be equivalent to providing constitutional protections to a wide variety of lawbreakers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Lewis said a court ruling based on the Equal Protection Clause in favor of gay couples &ldquo;would undo the entire state criminal code because we&rsquo;re all treated unequally. Speeders, when you&rsquo;re flying down the highway ten miles an hour over the speed limit, next time a cop pulls you over, say &lsquo;I&rsquo;m going to file a Supreme Court challenge to this ticket. I am being treated unequally. The guy next to me is not getting a ticket but I am just because I&rsquo;m a speeder. The law has a disparate impact on speeders.&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&ldquo;When we pass a law against rape, you&rsquo;re not treating a rapist equal,&rdquo; he went on in the program. &ldquo;The law, the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, simply means this: that people who find themselves in similar circumstances must be treated in a similar way &hellip; you must discriminate against all smokers, you must discriminate against all rapists.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&ldquo;So if the law says that we&rsquo;re not going to allow three people to marry, then you&rsquo;ve got to treat everybody the same way,&rdquo; he said, extending the argument to bans on polygamy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&ldquo;No three people can marry. Same is true for gay marriage. It&rsquo;s not discrimination. It&rsquo;s not unconstitutional. The law discriminates all the time. It discriminates against behavior.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>(<a data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/dominicholden\/republican-jason-lewis-compared-gay-people-to-rapists&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1533828830214000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHW5Mfyj2OKhgKWgmjUkMclKVVilg\" href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/dominicholden\/republican-jason-lewis-compared-gay-people-to-rapists\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MORE<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>**ICYMI** &nbsp; BuzzFeed News: Republican Congressman Seeking Reelection Once Compared Gay People To &ldquo;Rapists&rdquo; And Other Criminals &nbsp; By Dominic Holden &nbsp; Rep. Jason Lewis, who is running for reelection in Minnesota&#39;s 2nd District, has offered the Republican Party&rsquo;s go-to line on opposing same-sex marriage since he was elected to Congress in 2016 &mdash; that <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ICYMI: BuzzFeed News - Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-buzzfeed-news\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-08T15:29:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-23T20:18:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-buzzfeed-news\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-buzzfeed-news\/\",\"name\":\"ICYMI: BuzzFeed News - 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