Jonathan Van Ness launches scathing attack on gay ex-congressman Aaron Schock – and he doesn’t hold back
Jonathan Van Ness (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic) and Aaron Schock ( Kris Connor/Getty)
Jonathan Van Ness has said that Aaron Schock did “a lot of dumb and stupid s**t” as a congressman and said it’s “hard” to celebrate him coming out as gay.
Van Ness, who is best known as the grooming expert on Queer Eye, hit out at Schock in an Instagram post after the Republican came out as gay last week.
The non-binary star slammed Schock in a series of Instagram stories on March 6, shared by The Advocate.
“The amount of queens I’m seeing like Aaron Shocks [sic] insta is such a lol,” he wrote.
He criticised some of the media coverage around Schock’s decision to come out. He then pointed out that the Supreme Court in the United States is currently deciding whether or not LGBT+ people can be fired, and drew attention to the high rates of homelessness among queer people.
“Where are their stories?” he asked.
Jonathan Van Ness: Aaron Schock ‘not giving back’ to the LGBT+ community.
He continued: “Y’all this man lived in the closet while voting against LGBT+ interests for years. He screams about how he was victimised as he continues not giving back to the community he actively legislated against.
Van Ness said Schock’s apology to the LGBT+ community “wholly dodged any responsibility” for the “awful actions he perpetuated against our community”.
“But yes Aaron, have fun at Coachella glad you’ve joined the fight. I hope you actually work to undo your legacy.”
In a follow-up Instagram story, Van Ness hit out at Schock’s voting record as a Republican congressman, when he voted against LGBT+ hate crime protection and voted against scrapping “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
He screams about how he was victimised as he continues not giving back to the community he actively legislated against.
He said it “should be noted” that homophobic forces contributed to Schock’s resignation, but added: “He still in fact did a lot of dumb and stupid s**t.”
He finished: “I want to celebrate Aaron but I find it hard. I hope he becomes as vocal about the GOP’s never ending attacks on LGBTQ people.”
Ex-congressman came out as gay in an Instagram post last week.
Jonathan Van Ness’s Instagram post came after Aaron Schock came out as gay last week after years of publicly opposing LGBT+ equality.
The former congressman was a Republican representative for Illinois’s 18th congressional district. He resigned in 2015 in disgrace after a scandal involving his alleged misuse of public and campaign funds.
Prior to his resignation, he was a staunch opponent of equal rights. He voted against lifting the ban on LGB people serving in the military, against extending hate crime protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity, and in favour of the Defence of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
In a lengthy coming-out post published to Instagram and his website, Schock did not apologise for his hypocrisy. He justified his former opposition to gay marriage as being a product of the times, a position once shared by politicians like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – neither of whom had the insight of being gay themselves.
“I did like I’d always done and threw myself into the distraction of work and what I once understood success to be. That included being responsive to the interests of the constituents in the district that I served,” he said.
“Perhaps correctly, perhaps not, I assumed that revealing myself as their gay congressman would not go over well. I put my ambition over the truth, which not only hurt me, but others as well.”
“The truth is that if I were in Congress today, I would support LGBT+ rights in every way I could.
“I realise that some of my political positions run very much counter to the mainstream of the LGBT+ movement, and I respect them for those differences. I hope people will allow for me the same.”
