Homophobic governor spends coronavirus lockdown celebrating a ban on abortions with an anti-LGBT+ group
Jeff Leach speaks at an anti-abortion rally. (Jeff Leach/ Twitter)
Homophobic Texas state representative Jeff Leach celebrated the state’s abortion ban during the coronavirus pandemic with an anti-LGBT+ group.
Texas governor Greg Abbott recently joined the Republican governors of 11 other US states in moving to, or succeeding to, ban abortion under coronavirus emergency orders, according the The Washington Post.
Republican Texas state representative Leach joined the homophobic group Texas Values in a YouTube livestream to celebrate the fact that Texas has banned both medical and surgical abortions under the pretext of fighting the spread of the coronavirus.
Anti-LGBT+, anti-abortion group Texas Values believes that “advocates of homosexual marriage [are] waging war on marriage” and says that schools should only teach “abstinence education, wherein marriage between one man and one woman is promoted as the expected context for sexual activity”.
Jeff Leach said in the homophobic group’s livestream: “Thank God we’ve got a pro-life governor, a pro-life attorney general, and many pro-life warriors across the state like judges who have upheld the rule of law.”
Leach is vehemently anti-abortion, and once even said that women who get abortions should be subject to the death penalty, although he later changed his mind.
He has a long history of opposing LGBT+ rights, and before marriage equality was legalised across the US, he supported the Texas Defense of Marriage Act, which sought to ban same-sex marriage in the state.
According to Texas Observer, in 2015 Leach pushed to ban cities and counties in Texas from adopting anti-discrimination ordinances to protect LGBT+ people, and also tried to nullify existing discrimination protections.
He even made number three on Equality Texas’s “Worst 10 Texas House Members on LGBT+ Issues” list.
The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Texas abortion ban on Monday, April 20, and although governor Abbott is now beginning to allow elective surgeries in Texas, he is continuing to ban abortion.
