Florida state Rep. Mike Hill (image via campaign website)
A Florida lawmaker is being called unfit for office after a recording revealed him joking about executing gay Floridians.
An op-ed in the Pensacola News Journal shares an audio clip of Florida Rep. Mike Hill in a recent meeting with a group called Women for Responsible Legislation.
In the recording, a citizen comments, “In 1 Corinthians, it says that a man who has an affair with another man will be put to death.”
Hill can be heard responding, “It says that in the Old Testament, too.”
Another attendee inquires, “Can you introduce legislation?”
Laughter is heard in the background as Hill joins in the chuckles before saying, “I wonder how that would go over?”
It probably won’t surprise you to know that Hill’s Twitter account describes the 60-year-old as “Pro Life! Pro Guns! Pro Jesus!”
Andy Marlette, who penned the op-ed, writes that with that comment, “Hill proved why he is both an unfit legislator and an unfit Christian.”
Remember folks, this is the same state that lived through 49 people shot to death and 53 more injured at a gay bar, Pulse Nightclub, in June 2016.
Hill went on to share in the same meeting that he believes being gay is “a behavior, and it’s a choice” and that LGBTQ people don’t need legal protections.
In a longer audio clip obtained by The New Civil Rights Movement, Hill can be heard saying, “You can say, ‘But I was born that way.’ OK, well, fine, but nobody’s forcing you to engage in that relationship, even if you were born that way.”
In his essay, Marlette wonders why Hill, who clearly considers himself a Christian, didn’t just say, “No sir, stop right there, that’s wrong, that’s not what Jesus would do.”
But, he didn’t.
The op-ed calls for the Florida House to weigh in as well as Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson.
“It’s not enough to groan, roll our eyes and privately lament Mike Hill,” writes Marlette. “When public officials espouse cruel and immoral ideas, we are morally obligated to shout them down in the public square.”
As news of the recording has gone public, State Rep. Carlos Gulliermo Smith, who is the first openly gay Latino legislator in the state, has called on Hill to either apologize or resign.
