An Alabama mayor has posted comments on Facebook about killing LGBTQ people, then tried to deny the post was his, but finally admitted it.
Carbon Hill Mayor Mark Chambers posted a graphic that read, "We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics." It has now been removed, but Birmingham TV station WBRC captured a screen shot.
A Facebook friend of his commented, "By giving the minority more rights than the majority. I hate to think of the country my grandkids will live in unless somehow we change and I think that will take a revolution." Chambers responded to that comment by saying, "The only way to change it would be to kill the problem out. I know it's bad to say but without killing them out there's no way to fix it."
WBRC called Chambers, who first claimed the post was on someone else's page, then ended the conversation. Then he called back and said the comment was meant to be a private message to his friend. He also said, "I never said anything about killing out gays or anything like that." Then the reporter read the post back to him, and he said, "That's in a revolution. That's right! If it comes to a revolution in this country both sides of these people will be killed out."
During the conversation, Chambers further called immigrants "ungrateful" and said the U.S. is in a state of civil war. He complained about his Facebook page being public, but Facebook users control what others can see. He later changed the page's setting to private.
Chambers has been mayor of Carbon Hill, a northern Alabama town of fewer than 2,000 people, since 2014.
On Tuesday, Chambers released an apology on Facebook before taking down his personal page. Jasper, Ala.'s Daily Mountain Eagle featured a screen shot of the message on its own Facebook page: