Anti-LGBT+ Republican says white supremacists who caused death and destruction at Capitol are ‘patriots’
Virginia senator Amanda Chase. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Anti-LGBT+ Virginia state senator Amanda Chase has refused to back down after addressing the mob that assaulted democracy at the US Capitol.
Chase addressed the crowd of Trump extremists and violent white supremacist insurrectionists, many armed with bats, shields and chemical sprays, at the Wednesday (6 January) rally that later exploded into a confused and frenzied breaching of the Capitol.
Four rioters and a US Capitol Police officer died in the ensuing chaos with at least 56 DC Metropolitan Police officers injured, CNN reported, as insurrectionists attempted a coup by storming the seat of US power to falsely declare Donald Trump the winner of the presidential election.
Chase, who spoke to the crowd earlier that day, wrote on Facebook: “I had to be there today to represent those of us who believe this election was stolen from we the people.
“This was not a fair, free election. We don’t believe the lies, deception and complete stealing of this year’s 2020 presidential election. The people have had enough.”
Extremist Donald Trump supporters enter the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty)
“These were not rioters and looters; these were patriots who love their country and do not want to see our great republic turn into a socialist country,” she added.
“I was there with the people; I know. Don’t believe the fake media narrative.”
She continued to peddle the baseless and wholly inaccurate conspiracy that anti-facists were behind the riot, with Facebook labelling her claims as fake.
She added in one post: “I do not support violence, I do understand why yesterday turned into chaos.”
Facebook suspended her senatorial profile Friday (8 January) as the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus demanded she resigns as a result of her involvement, nbc12 reported.
Amanda Chase, gubernatorial candidate, would make LGBT+ Virginians ‘second class’ if elected.
Chase, who is set to run for state governor this year, has a troubling track record with showing human decency, so much so that a top LGBT+ activist said that if she is elected, “LGBTQ people would be given second-class status”.
She previously claimed that it was “those who are naive and unprepared that end up raped” and said that the removal of confederate monuments was an “overt effort to erase all-white history”.
She has voted to keep a state statutory ban on same-sex marriage, to ban trans people from obtaining birth certificates with their correct gender and name, to allow conversion therapy for minors and to keep discrimination against the LGBT+ community legal.
Chase also described the US Equal Rights Amendment as “nothing more than a ploy by the left to eliminate gender altogether”, and added that “never in a million years would the average woman want to be treated in the law the exact same as a man”.
