Antigay Reality Star Pardoned by Trump Challenges Rep. John Lewis

A former reality TV star who has likened LGBTQ identity to pedophilia is challenging civil rights icon John Lewis for his congressional seat.

"I'm very concerned about the whole LGBTQ movement and the way it sexualizes children," Stanton-King told NBC News Tuesday. "The LGBTQ community refers to people's sexual preferences -- lesbians like women, gay people like men -- and children shouldn't be walking advertisements for sexuality when they are not old enough to make their own decisions."

Stanton-King announced last week that she is running as a Republican for the U.S. House of Representatives in Georgia's Fifth Congressional District, which Lewis, a Democrat, has represented since 1987. The Fifth District covers most of Atlanta and some of the surrounding area.

Stanton-King was featured in the BET reality show From the Bottom Up and is author of the book Life of a Real Housewife. She was convicted of conspiracy for her involvement in a car theft ring and served six months of home confinement in 2007; Donald Trump pardoned her in February. She is the goddaughter of Alveda King, who is a niece of Martin Luther King Jr. and also an anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion activist.

Stanton-King has said that ending abortion is her primary goal, along with criminal justice reform, but she has spewed much vitriol against LGBTQ people as well. She told NBC she supports marriage equality and has gay people in her family -- a 19-year-old son and an aunt who raised her. But she called for legislation to assure that "children are not tied to the LGBTQ community."

She has posted several anti-transgender messages on Twitter, often conflating gender identity and sexual orientation, as in a tweet about athlete Dwyane Wade's transgender daughter, who has not been publicly identified as gay, straight, or bisexual.

A sample of her other anti-LGBTQ tweets:

Lewis, who is continuing his political career despite a recent diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer, is extremely popular in his heavily Democratic district. He was a leader in the African-American civil rights movement in the 1960s and beyond. He was a keynote speaker at the March on Washington in 1963 and was seriously injured when beaten by police in the 1965 demonstration in Selma, Ala., which became known as "Bloody Sunday." He is a longtime supporter of LGBTQ rights.

Lewis has one opponent in the Democratic primary, Barrington Martin II. Stanton-King is unopposed in the Republican primary. Both parties will hold their primaries for the seat May 19.