In a chilling viral video, school board candidate John Carlo of Clark County, Nevada says being LGBTQ+ "goes against our Constitution."
Speaking to a crowd of churchgoers, Carlo gave a warped American history lesson.
Watch the video below:
In the clip, he said:
“I believe in the Constitution. I believe in our—our—the way our founding fathers believed in this country: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Of course, this phrase was coined not in the Constitution but rather in the Declaration of Independence.
Someone tweeted:
"I have the impression John Carlo has never actually read the Constitution."
The GOP school board hopeful was holding a copy of a children's book during his speech.
The book, King & King, tells the story of a young prince who is pushed by his mother to find and marry a princess. As the title might suggest, her efforts were unavailing as the young prince fell in love with another prince.
Clutching the book, Carlo continued:
“That means that homosexuals cannot procreate."
"This goes against our Constitution and this goes against what parents want in the school district, and this is only one book out of thousands.”
Referring to the book, he said:
"This is disgusting."
Almost nothing Carlo said was accurate.
For one thing LGBTQ+ people can procreate and some heterosexual people cannot. Does Carlo exclude the infertile or post-menopausal from constitional protections?
The Constitution does not suggest people who can't procreate are outside of its protections, nor has it ever been legally interpreted that way by the federal government or the Supreme Court.
In response, one person tweeted:
"John Carlo clearly hasn't read the Constitution (or his bible). By his logic, simply choosing to not have any (or more) children also 'goes against our Constitution'."
"The Clark County School Board & its constituents should be embarrassed that this ignoramus is even an option."
Someone else added:
"If somebody had told me that in the 21st century a person would run for school board and claim that 'homosexuals can’t procreate' and that violates 'our Constitution' I would have laughed."
"Not laughing now."
"Where is this John Carlo running and why are people listening to him?"
To make matters worse, behind Carlo while he delivered his homophobic speech was a poster with a QR code taking viewers to a website pushing for the recall of Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak.
His campaign against Sisolak is heavily based on blatantly racist notions about his wife, an American of Chinese ancestry. Carlo refers to Sisolak as a "Puppet of China."
Carlo further claims "His new, post-election wife is Chinese. He bows to them, not us.”
Noting the hypocrisy, someone commented:
"I guess women who have hysterectomies or go through menopause and men whose little swimmers don’t swim also go against our constitution."
Carlo's homophobic agenda and flagrant racism have many worried if he is ever involved in making decisions for schoolchildren.
