Lauren Boebert speaks during a budget hearing in Washington, DC. (Getty/ Roberto Schmidt-Pool)
Republican Colorado representative Lauren Boebert has insisted that it should be illegal for LGBT+ people to come out until they are 21.
Boebert is a Republican, Trump-supporting conspiracy theorist and an activist for the expansion of gun rights, in a country with no minimum age limit for ownership of rifles.
On Friday, 1 April, Boebert tweeted: “We require people to be 21 to purchase [alcoholic] beverages, and 21 to purchase tobacco products.
“Why is it so unreasonable to require people to reach a certain level of maturity before making life-altering decisions about their sexuality and identity?”
We require people to be 21 to purchase alcohol beverages, and 21 to purchase tobacco products.
Why is it so unreasonable to require people to reach a certain level of maturity before making life-altering decisions buying a gun?
— David Leavitt 🔜 PAX EAST (@David_Leavitt) April 1, 2022
Her nonsensical comments received swift backlash, with one Twitter user responding: “So, no one can be straight until they’re 21? You are an idiot.”
Another posted a photo of Boebert’s young children, all holding guns, and wrote: “Doesn’t seem like age is an issue here.”
Doesn’t seem like age is a concern here. pic.twitter.com/mqtUbmf4PA
— BBT 🌐 (@CGovid) April 1, 2022
One Twitter user pointed out: “That would mean that children should consider the possibility that they’re gay all the way until they turn 21.”
Lauren Boebert is a staunchly anti-LGBT+, anti-abortion, anti-Islam conspiracy theorist
When Lauren Boebert was elected to Congress in 2020, she became the second congressperson to have openly supported the QAnon conspiracy theory, after Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Before getting into politics, Boebert opened a restaurant called Shooter’s Grill in Rifle, Colorado, where all staff members were encouraged to openly carry firearms while serving customers.
She has made several shocking comments about Muslim lawmakers, including Democratic representative Ilhan Omar.
In September, 2021, Boebert described getting into a lift with Omar, and claimed she said to her aide: “It’s the Jihad Squad … She doesn’t have a backpack, she wasn’t dropping it and running so we’re good.”
Boebert is openly anti-LGBT+, insisting on her campaign website that she opposes “efforts to redefine marriage as anything other than the union of one man and one woman”, and describing affirming LGBT+ kids as “sacrificing the safety and wellbeing of our children on the altar of radical leftist ideology”.