{"id":13603,"date":"2023-06-14T02:57:40","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T07:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=13603"},"modified":"2023-06-14T02:57:46","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T07:57:46","slug":"republicans-censure-senator-for-backing-lgbtq-rights-and-gun-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=13603","title":{"rendered":"Republicans censure senator for backing LGBTQ+ rights and gun control"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Republican<\/a> US senator Thom Tillis has been reprimanded by party officials in his home state of North Carolina after his support of gun control and same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 1,000 delegates at the North Carolina<\/a> Republican party\u2019s annual convention voted behind closed doors on Saturday to censure Tillis, a move that does not affect his elected position but signals strong dissatisfaction with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need people who are unwavering in their support for conservative ideals,\u201d the Republican delegate Jim Forster told the Associated Press<\/a> about censuring Tillis, who has been willing to break with party stances on LGBTQ+ rights, gun control and immigration policy. \u201cHis recent actions don\u2019t reflect the party\u2019s shift to the right \u2013 in fact, they\u2019re moving in the exact wrong direction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tillis, who has held his Senate seat since 2015, does not apologize for his voting record, according to a statement from a spokesperson for his office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The censure against Tillis comes after Republicans<\/a> in Texas and Wyoming approved similar measures against federal lawmakers who opposed the preferences of party officials in those states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas Republicans in March censured party member Tony Gonzales after the congressman voted in favor of gun control and same-sex marriage, which Americans<\/a> mostly support<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, in 2021, Wyoming Republicans censured congresswoman Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Trump before losing her re-election campaign during a primary last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tillis was among just 15 Republicans in the Senate who supported the gun control bill that Joe Biden signed into law last year. The legislation expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers while funding mental health and violence intervention programs, though \u2013 according to the non-partisan Gun Violence Archive<\/a> \u2013 it has not prevented the US from recording nearly 300 shootings with four or more victims so far this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also voted in favor of legislation which enshrined protections for same-sex and interracial couples. His support for the Respect for Marriage Act came about a decade after he played a pivotal role in the same-sex marriage ban that North Carolina passed in 2012, when he was the speaker of the state\u2019s house of representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tillis also often spoke out against the generally restrictive immigration policies which Donald Trump pursued during his presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His voting record on those issues gained him the reputation as one of Capitol Hill\u2019s bipartisan dealmakers. And not every North Carolina Republican agreed with Saturday\u2019s censure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One state senator, Bobby Hanig, said such a divisive action ahead of the 2024 presidential election was unwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA mob mentality doesn\u2019t do us any good,\u201d Hanig said. \u201cSenator Tillis does a lot for North Carolina \u2026 so why would I want to make him mad?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another state senator, Jim Burgin, added: \u201cI don\u2019t think we need to be attacking our own. You don\u2019t shoot your own elephants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Associated Press contributed reporting<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Republican US senator Thom Tillis has been reprimanded by party officials in his home state of North Carolina after his support of gun control and same-sex marriage. More than 1,000 delegates at the North Carolina Republican party\u2019s annual convention voted behind closed doors on Saturday to censure Tillis, a move that does not affect his elected position but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152,5],"tags":[3493,8199,8385,2066,1198],"class_list":["post-13603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","category-politics","tag-gun-control","tag-lgbtq-2","tag-mob-mentality","tag-senate","tag-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13605,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13603\/revisions\/13605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}