New Colorado GOP chair opposes public schools because they purportedly teach students to accept “deviant” LGBTQ “lifestyles”
Dave Williams on a right-wing program: “I encourage all of your viewers: Take your kids out of public school”
Written by Eric Hananoki
Published
Colorado Republicans recently elected as their new state chair Dave Williams, a former congressional candidate who has frequently appeared in the media and echoed right-wing commentators’ anti-LGBTQ attacks on the public school system. Williams said on a program that parents should boycott public schools because children allegedly learn “it's OK to engage in deviant sexual lifestyles.”
He has also followed right-wing media in claiming that the election was stolen and has twice appeared on a QAnon program.
The Colorado GOP’s central committee selected Williams to head the party on Saturday. Williams, who previously served as a state representative, lost a Republican primary bid for Congress last year. He also gained attention for a media stunt in which he attempted to use “Let’s Go Brandon” as a nickname on the ballot.
Williams is one of a number of Republican state party chairs who are election deniers. Michigan recently elected right-wing commentator Kristina Karamo, who has bragged that she hasn’t conceded her 2022 secretary of state loss because she didn’t view the election as legitimate.
As a legislator, Williams followed right-wing media and former President Donald Trump by attacking Dominion Voting Systems for purportedly interfering with the 2020 election. He has also told audiences that Biden wasn’t legitimately elected.
Shortly after the 2020 election, Williams appeared on the December 16, 2020, edition of the Colorado-based The Chuck and Julie Show, where he said: “It's hard for me to look at everything that I'm seeing across the country and say, you know what, something fishy didn't happen. It's just not possible. There are — I don't know how anyone could look at this and say that the president lost in a fair, straight-up fight, because I don't believe that happened in any stretch of the imagination.”
Williams recently reiterated his view that Biden is an illegitimate president, stating on the radio show of Republican lawyer George Brauchler on March 1: “I never thought he was legitimate because I know how illegal ballot harvesting works.”
The Republican official also has a history of anti-LGBTQ bigotry. He supported anti-LGBTQ legislation as a state representative and, as a college student, he was impeached as the student body president at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs after attacking LGBTQ students.
During a June 17, 2022, appearance on the right-wing program Take Five, Williams claimed that “the radical homosexual lobby” is trying to “indoctrinate” children into thinking “it's OK to engage in deviant sexual lifestyles that are unnatural and certainly a violation of what the lord did for proper relationships.” He then urged parents to “take your kids out of public school.”
Citation From the June 17, 2022, edition of Take Five
DAVE WILLIAMS: Right now there's a big issue with the radical homosexual lobby that's trying to indoctrinate our kids into thinking that they can be some, they can be the opposite sex than what they were, that they were at birth. You had them thinking that, hey, it's OK to engage in deviant sexual lifestyles that are unnatural and certainly a violation of what the lord intended for proper relationships. These things are — they're really going after our children. I think you're starting to see parents figure out how to best protect their children and steer them back to, you know, biblical principles. And a lot of that goes with taking their kids out of public school. I encourage all of your viewers: Take your kids out of public school. That's not what we should be allowing our children to be involved in, given the state of our public school system. Home-school them. Put them in a private school, if you can do that. Figure out ways to educate your children in a godly way because right now our kids are not being taught godly principles. That's for sure. And they're not even being taught fundamental academic concepts.
Right-wing commentators in recent years have been waging war against the public school system, claiming schools are indoctrinating children, especially regarding LGBTQ identity.
Williams has also twice appeared on the QAnon-supporting program The Mel K Show. During both appearances, the then-Republican candidate promoted his congressional campaign and asked Mel K’s audience for help.