Boston, MA – July 7, 2016 – Boston Pride expresses its outrage and disgust at the language employed by State Senate candidate Ted Busiek when he recently tweeted his praise of Donald Trump for “putting self-righteous faggots in their place since 1993.” It is baffling that in the year 2016, in Massachusetts, a candidate for office would employ such a term, especially right after Boston completed a highly successful LGBTQ Pride month celebration.

Mr. Busiek seems not to realize that his use of this f* word (and the subsequent defense of that usage in a pedantic yet silly “case for coarse language”) signals publicly that, as a possible representative of citizens of the Bay State, it’s ok to call someone such a term. Mr. Busiek needs, unfortunately, to be reminded that hate speech hurts, and hate speech kills. Bullying against queer students, rejection of LGBTQ youth from their homes, violence against trans* people, against people of color, and high suicide attempt rates amongst our community’s youth are a tough reality, even in our Commonwealth. Casually dropping that kind of f* bomb simply fuels the flames of homophobia and legitimizes hateful behavior.

This language has no place in political discourse, it has no place in public discourse. Boston Pride calls on Republican leaders in the Bay State to disavow unequivocally Mr. Busiek.