After mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, this weekend, a Republican state lawmaker from Ohio blamed the violence on “homosexual marriage,” “drag queen advocates” and more in a bizarre Facebook post.
State Rep. Candice Keller complained about Democrats playing “the blame game” after every mass shooting in a post on her personal Facebook account. The lawmaker from Middletown in Butler County — a small city 30 miles south of Dayton, where a gunman killed nine on Sunday — wrote that the real blame should be on the “breakdown of the traditional American family” and “acceptance of recreational marijuana.”
“Why not place the blame where it belongs?” Keller asked before listing the issues she believes are to blame for mass shootings in the country:
Keller concluded the post, writing: “Did I forget anybody? The list is long. And the fury will continue.” The post is not visible to everyone on Facebook, but screenshots of Keller’s remarks have circulated on Twitter.
Keller did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. The state lawmaker did confirm to the Cincinnati Enquirer that she wrote the post. It is still published on her Facebook page.
On Saturday, a gunman opened fired in a Walmart in El Paso, killing 22 and wounding more than two dozen. Early Sunday morning, a shooter killed nine and wounded 27 people in Dayton’s downtown Oregon District.
Keller received swift criticism other Ohio officials.
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones called for Keller’s resignation on Monday.
“Those people aren’t even buried yet and she came out with these comments. … She should resign because she doesn’t represent our party,” Jones told the Journal News, a local news site.
“She doesn’t represent me, she doesn’t represent our community, she doesn’t represent the state or the country,” he added.
Keller told the Journal News that she’s been advised to not leave her home after she received several threats because of her remarks.
Ohio Attorney General David Yost, a Republican, responded to Keller’s remarks on Twitter, writing: “No, m’am. The blame belongs to the evil man who killed those people.”
Jane Timken, chairwoman for the Ohio Republican Party, described Keller’s remarks to the Journal News as “shocking and utterly unjustifiable.”
Keller announced in May that she is running for the state Senate in 2020.
Scroll on to read more Twitter reactions to her comments.
This article was updated after the death toll in El Paso increased on Monday, and to include more reactions to Keller’s comments.
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