Don't be 'weak and gay,' Missouri Republican candidate says in campaign video

A Republican candidate for Missouri secretary of state has posted a campaign video exhorting voters not to be “weak and gay.”

“In America you can be anything you want, so don’t be weak and gay,” Valentina Gomez says in the video posted this week to X, formerly Twitter. “Stay fucking hard.” She’s shown running through the heavily LGBTQ+ Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis, and then the video cuts to a still picture of her holding a gun.

Gomez, a 25-year-old real estate investor, is one of several candidates seeking the Republican nomination for secretary of state. The current officeholder, Republican Jay Ashcroft, is running for governor to replace term-limited fellow GOPer Mike Parson.

This is not the first time she’s used the phrase while campaigning, radio station WCPT reports. “She used the term on Tim Pool’s ‘Timcast IRL’ podcast to describe ‘countries that ban rifles, guns or even flamethrowers,’” the station notes.

She posted a video to social media in February of her using a flamethrower to burn LGBTQ-themed books, and in the message she promised that if she is elected secretary of state, she will “BURN all books that are grooming, indoctrinating, and sexualizing our children.”

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In other evidence of her far-right credentials, her X bio begins, “Jesus is King. MAGA. America First.” On her campaign website, her stated platform includes “protecting children against the transgender agenda,” “securing the Second Amendment,” and opposing vaccine mandates. She wants to replace all voting machines with paper ballots and require voters to show identification.

She claims the Missouri Republican establishment is corrupt and fears her. The party controls all statewide offices and both chambers of the legislature, but apparently it is not far enough to the right for her, although the state has enacted many anti-LGBTQ+ laws. One politician who appears to be sufficiently right-wing for her is GOP U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, as she has retweeted favorable comments from him and called him “the greatest Congressman in History.”

On her “weak and gay” post, she tagged Andrew Tate, a retired British kickboxer “whose controversial content has garnered him the nickname ‘the king of toxic masculinity,’” WCPT reports. “Tate and his brother Tristan are currently facing human trafficking charges in Romania after several women were found being held against their will in Tate’s home.”

Andrew Tate “has said that women hold some responsibility if they are raped and that they ‘belong’ to men in marriage, while men should be providers and protect them,” according to The New York Times.