Massachusetts Governor Baker has joined calls for GOP State Committee Member Deborah Martell to resign after Martell made a series of homophobic slurs by email and allegedly in person against the family of Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette, a fellow Bay State Republican running for congress.
“Deborah Martell’s comments about Jeffrey Sossa-Paquette and his family are abhorrent and have no place in public discourse and of course have no place in the leadership of a political party founded on protecting individual freedom,” Baker said in a statement to the Boston Globe.
According to another report on NBC Boston 10, Martell’s remarks came in a series of emails calling for another candidate to “primary” Sossa-Paquette because he is a gay dad and describing how she was “sickened” by his and his husband’s parenting, as gay men, of their two children.
Reports the Globe:
“I heard he was a ‘married’ homosexual man, who adopted children,” Martell wrote in a May 15 email, obtained by the Globe, to Republican colleagues. “I was sickened to hear this.”
Sossa-Paquette told the newspaper that Martell, who represents Lowell on the 80-member state committee, repeated the same remarks to him directly when he confronted her about the email, informing her of his plan to share her remarks publicly.
“I am a Catholic who loves God and His Ten Commandments,” Martell wrote back to him on May 19, according to the Globe. “I wish the best for every person in the world, including you! What sickened me was that you adopted children. . . . Children deserve a mom and a dad. That’s how God designed marriage and the family.”
Several Republican leaders, including Baker and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, are condemning Martell’s words and calling for her resignation.
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