Homophobic mayor who called for gays to be killed finally resigns amid outrage over Black Lives Matter comments
Mark Chambers of Carbon Hill, Alabama (Carbon Hill)
An Alabama mayor who advocated for killing gay people last year has finally resigned after denouncing the Black Lives Matter movement.
Mark Chambers, the Republican mayor of Carbon Hill, Alabama, directly called for the “killing” of queer people in a Facebook post last year.
“We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics,” he wrote.
“The only way to change it would be to kill the problem out. I know it’s bad to say but without killing them out there’s no way to fix it.”
The mayor at first denied writing the comments, then claimed that the words had been taken out of context and were intended to be sent as a private message.
As he faced multiple calls to step down he eventually admitted that it had been wrong to say anyone should be killed, but insisted he “was not targeting the LGBTQ community”.
Alabama mayor says all lives matter.
The final nail in his coffin came on June 25, when he sparked yet another Facebook controversy in the comments beneath a post from the University of Alabama football team, the Crimson Tide.
The post was an antiracism video discussing the need to listen and learn from each other, concluding with the words: “All lives can’t matter until Black Lives Matter.”
“In this moment in history, we can’t be silent.” pic.twitter.com/YF4ndJSpa0
— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) June 25, 2020
Chambers wrote that he would be selling his photos of Alabama players because “[Coach] Nick Sabin and the Tide is done in my opinion.”
In the following thread, which was seen by The Daily Mountain Eagle before it was deleted, the mayor confirmed that his opposition was due to their support of Black Lives Matter.
“Their sorry a*s political views is why their [sic] getting out of my house,” he wrote, adding: “When you put Black lives before all lives they can kiss my a*s”.
Later that day he posted an image on a separate account that read: “ALL LIVES MATTER” and “JESUS DIED FOR US ALL.”
As outrage grew, Chambers turned in a letter of resignation which simply stated: “I quit the job of mayor effective June 27 at 4:30 pm.”
He refused to speak to local media, and would not respond to either the acting mayor Greg Anderson or the city attorney Steve Thomas over the weekend.
The city council held an emergency meeting on Wednesday (July 1), at which members accepted Chambers’ resignation and appointed councilwoman April Kennedy Herron as mayor.
She said she would run for a full four-year term in November, The Daily Mountain Eagle reports.
