PERRY: Colorado GOP attempts to launch West Bro Dave Williams into a new solo career

Just when we were beginning to think that there wasn’t a shriek too shrill or a gaffe too ghastly for the Gen Hex wing of the Colorado Republican Party, it appears that Colorado Springs’ own West Bro Dave Williams has crossed that line.

Williams, chairperson of the Colorado Republican Party and candidate for Colorado Springs’ 5th Congressional District, set political fire to himself last week when he mass-emailed the planet with a savage missive, credited to the Colorado Republican Party. It landed in email boxes with a giant “opener” that read: “God Hates Flags.”

If you’re too young to remember the lowly human who coined the original phrase and campaign that Williams tweaked and borrowed, you might have only double-taked on the creepy graphic.

But the rest of the world has not yet forgotten the sick and dangerous antics of one of the nation’s most hateful creepers, The Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.

He, and his flock of fellow bigots, made “God Hates Fags” infamous across the globe.

In Phelps’ effort to use shock to draw attention to his obsession with sexuality and Baptist mantra, he gave the Westboro Baptist Church all the charm and admiration enjoyed by the Gestapo.

Even the most evangelical and righteous of the right denounced this organization and its virulent hate for LGTBQ+ people, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Barack Obama and women with short hair.

It’s widely viewed as a cult and hate group, which still exists in Topeka, Kansas, and it still rants and rages online.

The group is so foul, that even the most indifferent have shunned their existence, and especially their schemes of showing up at the funerals of veterans to light fires with the hate signs and chants.

So you can easily see why Republicans right here in Aurora, across the metro area and across the state are moving fast to force Williams out as GOP chairperson. Led right now by Jefferson County Republicans, they are forcing a statewide meeting to force Williams’ ouster before he lights fire to a political party already smoldering from the likes of Lauren Boebert and Donald Trump.

This is a convenient place to remind readers that Colorado — once run by Republicans like John Love, Tony Grampsas, Al Meiklejohn, Dottie Wham, Claire Traylor, Norma Anderson, and more recently, Cole Wist and Kevin Priola, now a Democrat — virtually invented state-sponsored abortion rights.  And, in a somewhat bi-partisan move, they helped create same-sex unions before the Supreme Court acknowledged the federal right to same-sex marriage.

Republicans like Aurora City Councilmember Curtis Gardner wasted no time last week after Williams issued his email manifesto, insisting that “Ultimately, these LGBTQ+ reprobates want to groom your children and sexually exploit them so they can normalize pedophilia.”

Shortly after, Gardner said in social media post on X, formerly Twitter,  “I largely try to avoid commenting on partisan issues as City Council is a non-partisan job but I can no longer stay silent on the actions of the Colorado GOP and their latest hateful stunt,” as posted on X. “The Republican Party, and specifically, the Colorado GOP, no longer stands for the issues that I care about — individual rights, financial responsibility, restraint of government, limited foreign intervention, and encouraging economic mobility.”

He’s hardly alone.

What began with dozens of Republicans I know and respect backing toward the door after Trump’s election is becoming a tsunami of “nope.” Rational people don’t want to be associated with the freaky hate, fear and outright lunacy perpetuated by Republicans like Williams, Lauren Boebert and Tina Peters.

These people aren’t leaders in any sense of the past Republican Party in Colorado. They’re unstable nutcases in the limelight and in the same spirit and fashion of Fred Phelps.

Anyone who insists that Pride Month is about anything but offering respect and equality to everyone, and that Phelps’ infamous hate memes are cute or effective, shouldn’t be permitted to lead.

Williams’ bigoted bash at the LGTBQ + community is just part of statewide Republican angst over the GOP chairperson. Colorado Sun reporters outed Williams for spending state party dollars on his own primary congressional race. And the state GOP this year endorsed in Republican primary races, including his own. He endorsed himself.

The gay-bashing for Jesus stunt was the end for a growing list of Colorado’s GOP leaders.

Good for Gardner and the hundreds of Republicans across the state who’ve stood up to Williams’ terrorist rant, in which he tells his readers to “burn all the pride flags.”

Republicans need to take the matches away from Williams. Find a leader more attuned to Colorado values so the public can discuss GOP policy rather than mental stability.

 Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com