After a string of offensive remarks while attempting to derail cities’ rights in West Virginia to have ordinances protecting the LGBTQ community from discrimination, Delegate Eric Porterfield, R-Mercer, has been given ample opportunity to explain himself.
It turns out Porterfield isn’t as bad as you think he is. He’s worse.
Porterfield came under fire for comparing the LGBTQ community to the Ku Klux Klan, and using a derogatory term for homosexuals in reference to the name of a tour Milo Yiannopolous (who is gay but known for extreme right-wing political stunts) took to college campuses a couple of years ago. The state GOP and other Republican delegates have denounced his remarks.
Porterfield has remained staunchly unapologetic, and has now turned to painting himself as the victim, sporting his red MAGA cap, calling Democrats who want him to resign “socialists” and referring to the LGBTQ community as “vicious” and “political terrorists.”
He made even more disturbing remarks in a near-20 minute interview with Rachel Anderson on WVVA-TV.
Anderson asked Porterfield, who has two young children, what he would do if one day one of them told him they thought they might be gay. He said if it was his daughter, he would take her for a pedicure, if it was his son, he’d take him hunting and fishing. In both cases, after those activities, he said he would “see if [they] can swim.” He then grinned.
Anderson tries a couple of times to get Porterfield to clarify what appears to be a reference to drowning his children if they were gay. Porterfield doesn’t offer up much of anything but that grin.