Louisiana’s Attorney General Jeff Landry is a lot of things. A husband. A father. A pro-gun, anti-choice Tea Partier. A climate change denier. An Obamacare hater. A Trump lover. And, naturally, a homophobe.
In 2010, Landry supported a constitutional Amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. In 2012, he went on a bizarre campaign to get rid of the LGBTQ Studies minor available at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. And just this year he refused to sign off on contracts with several state employees because they included anti-discrimination clauses that protected LGBTQ people.
Well, now, his antigay antics have earned him a new outspoken critic: His younger brother, Nicholas. Who just so happens to be gay. And who just launched a website called www.LandryforLouisianaEquality.com, which he hopes to use as a platform to speak out against his brother’s homophobic views.
“I can’t remain silent any longer,” 34-year-old Nicholas says in a video, “because although I am not political, I am a human being, and I just want my rights, my unalienable rights.”
He continues: “Those of you who are worried, who are in the same position as me and who may not have an attorney general for a brother, I want you to know I stand with you guys and those who want to be married and I’ll do anything I can do to support anyone and any organization.”
Nicholas goes on to explain that he is not accepted by his family, which is a struggle for him.
“Being from a family like my family, it isn’t easy,” he says. “It’s hard because I want nothing more than to be a part of my family, and I love my family so much.”
But he hopes to channel that pain into something positive.
“I wanted to do this because I felt like I had to,” he explains, “because there’s no one except for me who can take a stand against what my brother and other people and other organizations within Louisiana are doing to take away our right to marriage and our right to equality.”
Political hypocrisy and willful ignorance its finest.