Anti-gay MAGA candidate trolled with photo of her husband dancing in a speedo at… Pride??
A far-right, MAGA candidate for mayor in Franklin, Tennessee, has been expertly trolled after including a typo in a text message to her supporters.
Gabrielle Hanson is a Republican alderman at large. She began to make headlines earlier this year for her opposition to Franklin Pride taking place in a city park.
In April, she opposed the city giving a permit for the Pride festival to go ahead. At a meeting, she waved a photo of a drag queen claiming it showed the performer eating a “live, bleeding heart”. She warned, “This could have happened in our park.”
Her attempts to block the event failed and it went ahead without incident.
Since then, she has campaigned to become mayor whilst promoting an extreme, MAGA agenda.
A few days ago she sent out a text message to followers encouraging them to go to a conservative voter guide. However, there was a spelling mistake in the address. It said williamsom-families.org (with an “m”) instead of williamson-families.org (with an “n”).
Someone quickly rushed to register the williamsom-families.org domain and used it to post a photo of Hanson’s husband, wearing a US flag speedo, at Chicago Pride. They included a caption saying, “So proud of my husband Tom at our Chicago Pride festival!”
The site went on to link to several news stories highlighting Hanson’s far-right views.
Tom Hanson’s appearance at Chicago Pride
The photo of Hanson’s husband is real. Before relocating to Franklin, Hanson and her husband, Tom, had spent time living in Chicago. Tom ran as a Republican candidate for Illinois’ 5th congressional district in 2008.
In an interview with Windy City Times that year, he explained his presence and outfit at Pride.
Promoting himself as a “liberal Republican” with no support from the mainstream party, he sought at eye-catching ways of raising awareness about his campaign.
“I contacted the Chicago Pride organization and I said that I wanted to be in it. For several weeks they resisted my efforts to be in the parade because a Republican in the late ’90s was in the parade and he protested gay rights and they honestly didn’t want a Republican in there. I was allowed in the parade after some people dropped out.
“So then I thought how was I going to make an impact in the parade? I’m a Republican, nobody’s going to want to listen to me. So it just came to me. I said maybe I’ll wear an American flag Speedo and my wife said, ‘If you do that, I’ll hold you to it.’ Honestly, two-or-three weeks before the parade, every night, about two or three o’clock in the morning, I would wake up and think ‘Am I out of my mind?’”
Hmmm… seems Gabrielle was happy with her husband attending a Pride parade in Speedos in Chicago. She just wants to deny the same opportunity to the folk of Franklin.
White supremacy and prostitution
Hanson has not commented on the creation of the website. She maybe has other concerns on her mind. On Tuesday, Hanson was rebuked by fellow aldermen after white supremacists turned up at a candidates forum last week to offer Hanson security.
Hanson refused to condemn the group, telling her fellow aldermen they were witnessing the “spiritual repercussions” of their own “bad decisions … This is the old adage of you reap what you sow.”
BREAKING: Controversial Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle @HansonforMayor refuses to denounce “actual literal Nazis” who came to forum to “protect” her and blames her colleagues for the division in the community. “You reap what you sow.” 1/ pic.twitter.com/ZaJCbiH3OD
— Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) October 11, 2023
Hanson also made headlines last month when it emerged she was previously linked with helping to run a prostitution business in the 1990s in Dallas, Texas.
There’s no shame in being involved in the sex industry… unless perhaps you later run on a family-values, conservative ticket.
Hanson later said in an Instagram video that it was all a mix-up. She said she was answering phones placing adverts and trying to earn money while finishing up at community college. It was only when the police turned up that she discovered the company was also offering escort services. She claims she was horrified.
Hanson said she had no money to pay for an attorney and asked police for advice on the “easiest way out.” She says she was advised to plead no contest to one count of promotion of prostitution. She said this was similar to a “speeding ticket” in terms of severity.
Hanson says she then moved to Chicago where she “rekindled my love for Christ”.
You can watch that doozer of an admission below.
