Rev. Lewis Nash Sr. (Screen Capture: YouTube/Lewis Nash Sr. 4 State Rep. 181)
Rev. Lewis Nash Sr., who is challenging gay Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta for his seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, was heard making disparaging remarks about LGBTQ people in leaked audio reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer last week.
Now the Democratic leader of the 47th ward in North Philadelphia is facing criticism from Kenyatta as well as from other party leaders including Former U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, who chairs the Democratic City Committee and called Nash’s comments “disgraceful.”
According to The Inquirer, in the recording, which was obtained from a meeting with Democratic committee members in August, Nash said that “some elected officials are encouraging children to seek gender reassignment surgery, and that members should not ‘vote for a president that’s going to [support] the mutilation of kids.’”
Additionally, he expressed concern “about teachers telling children ‘they got two mommies,” and said elected officials should not tell his child that “she can go have an abortion without my permission.”
Speaking to The Inquirer, Nash denied that he was referring to President Joe Biden and said he harbors no animus toward LGBTQ people, stressing “that he was trying to communicate that parents should have a say in their children’s medical and mental health care.”
“I’ve been a pastor for 24 years, and we all have individuals in our families that chose an alternative lifestyle, and I never discriminated against them,” he said.
Nash accused Kenyatta of orchestrating the leaked audio — a charge to which Kenyatta responded that he played “zero role in orchestrating the hate, bigotry, and misogyny that flows so freely from his mouth.”
“That’s a question he needs to deal with internally, and he should stop projecting those decisions he’s made onto others,” Kenyatta said. “Those hateful comments have no place in the Democratic Party.”
Widely considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, in April 2023 Kenyatta was chosen by the White House to serve as chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans.
In 2022, he ran for the U.S. Senate seat now held by former Pennsylvania Lieutenant Gov. John Fetterman (D).
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