Candidate statements in voter guides are usually pretty boilerplate stuff -- a bit on their records, positions on various issues, and the occasional focus on a single position, like opposition to abortion. But one candidate for U.S. senator from California has used his space in the state's voter guide to publish a noxious anti-transgender screed.
"There is no such thing as 'transgender,'" writes Don J. Grundmann, a Bay Area chiropractor running as an independent. "It does not exist. What does exist are broken people who pretend to be the opposite sex and even mutilate themselves in the attempt."
It gets worse, as he calls acceptance of transgender people "a form of child molestation." "There is a massive Social Engineering campaign to normalize the soul pathology and social sickness of 'transgenderism,'" his statement says. So-called 'transgender' children are being used as weapons to attack and destroy normal/healthy children. The objective of these attacks is to warp and then break the moral foundation of increasing numbers of children so that both current and, especially, future generations will be manufactured into psychotics and destroyed. ... Please join the developing national campaign to save children from the transgender hysteria and to ban the transgender mutilation of children."
Grundmann's toxic rhetoric apparently doesn't break any rules for the guide. "A candidate for United States Senator may purchase the space to place a statement in the state voter information guide that does not exceed 250 words," reads the California law on the matter. "The statement shall not make any reference to any opponent of the candidate. The statement shall be submitted in accordance with timeframes and procedures set forth by the Secretary of State for the preparation of the state voter information guide."
While his statement in the voter guide focuses solely on transgender people, Grundmann has other hateful views. His campaign website -- which is titled Fight-the-Power.org and displays Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover on the home page -- equates homosexuality with pedophilia, saying, "The legalization of homosexual marriage will virtually ensure that this real goal; the normalization of child molestation; will be achieved."
On the site, Grundmann also decries "the end of masculinity," which he blames primarily on the transgender rights movement, rails against abortion, and calls for an end to the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Service. He doesn't like a whole lot of other things as well -- Social Security, public schools, vaccines, Planned Parenthood, and immigration. But he loves the Second Amendment.
Grundmann is listed under "No Party Preference" in the voter guide, but his blurb identifies him as state chairman of the Constitution Party, a conservative party founded in 1972. He sought the party's presidential nomination in 2016.
California's primary election will be June 5. The state has a "top two" system, under which the top two vote recipients in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of party. In the heavily Democratic state, the top two in the U.S. Senate race are likely to be incumbent Dianne Feinstein and fellow Democrat Kevin de Leon, currently leader of the state Senate. Grundmann, however, will undoubtedly find another platform for his hate.
