Maine Rep. Larry Lockman Finds It's Hard to Live Down Pro-Rape Comments

A state lawmaker in Maine is having a hard election season after some comments he made about rape decades ago resurfaced. "If a woman has the right to abortion, why shouldn't a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman?" asked Rep. Larry Lockman (R-Amherst) in 1990. Now that phrase features prominently in a new anti-Lockman mailing from the Maine Democatic Party. 

Apparently Lockman's political career has been dotted with controversial commentary. In February, Bangor Daily News writer Mike Tipping noted that Lockman—a first-term representative who has "quickly established himself as a vocal leader" of the Maine GOP's tea party wing—was once active in campaigning against income taxes but switched focus in the mid-1980s to HIV fearmongering and denouncing gay men. In one 1987 letter to the Lewiston Sun Journal, Lockman wrote:

In the overwhelming majority of cases, people are dying because of their addiction to sodomy. They are dying because progressive, enlightened, tolerant people in politics and in medicine have assured the public that the practice of sodomy is a legitimate alternative lifestyle, rather than a perverted, depraved crime against humanity.

He also called anal sex "biologically-insane" and the "normalization of homosexuality" one of the most pressing moral issues of our time. In the early 1990s, Lockman became highly concerned with protesting abortion. A letter-to-the-editor of the Lewiston Sun Journal quotes Lockman saying the following: 

If a woman has (the right to abortion), why shouldn't a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist's pursuit of sexual freedom doesn't (in most cases) result in anyone's death. 

A woman's bodily autonomy comes second to either an embryo's or a man's claims on it, but certainly somebody other than the woman herself has a right to it, of that much Lockman is certain! (And can we just pause to recognize the utter creepiness of the phrase "the rapist's pursuit of sexual freedom"?) 

After the Bangor Daily News column came out, Lockman released a statment saying "I have always been passionate about my beliefs, and years ago I said things that I regret. … today I am focused on ensuring freedom and economic prosperity for all Mainers."

Comments

[Drake]

A state lawmaker in Maine is having a hard election season...

Really?

[GILMORE]

How can you blame him as a 'person', EMB, when he is really just a product of our Omnipresent Rape Culture?

[GILMORE]

sorry, 'ENB'

I can't even aconymate properly. I blame public schooling!

[Elizabeth Nolan Brown]

I blame rape culture.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Wha...Umm..How...er...Oh, this is about "You down with ENB? (Yeah, you know me!)"

[Paul.]

White people be all, "wha?"

[Heroic Mulatto]

I'm expressing with my full capabilities, and now I'm living in correctional facilities.

[Paul.]

I blame public schooling!

Common Core to the rescue!

[Hillary's Clitdong]

I blame Warty Culture.

[Mainer2]

Thanks alot, Larry ! (asshole)

[lap83]

"recognize the utter creepiness of the phrase "the rapist's pursuit of sexual freedom"?"

Why is it creepier than any of the other motivations people subscribe to a rapist's behavior?

[Marktaylor]

Yeah, this a full on derptastic progressive hit piece. His comment was in the same context as saying if she can kill her baby than why can't someone kill her. Then I guess reason would have a story about his pro-murder comments.

Agree with him or don't but this headline is dishonest.

[lap83]

Agreed. It's only pro-rape if you're stuck in binders-and-birthing-camps mode.

[lap83]

and if you are, then everything Republicans do or think or say is pro-rape in some respect. So it's really no more pro-rape than anything else.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

It's his fault that he thought people could follow a logical train of thought. That's why he said "fuck it," and simply apologized.

[paranoid android]

"I was just saying that women who have abortions are morally equivalent to rapists, and now everyone's ganging up on me like I said something terrible!"

[Notorious G.K.C.]

That kind of begs the question. If you think fetuses are living human beings (which they are), and that innocent living human beings are persons with rights (an understandable perspective), or even if like our lords and masters on the Supreme Court you consider the fetus to be a "potential life," then you're going to be appalled at this massive slaughter, and the only question is whether it's politically expedient to compare the violence of abortion to the violence of rape (I don't think it's always expedient - it's an inconvenient truth).

Of course, if you think the fetus is an inconsequential lump of protoplasm, an excuse for Handmaids Tale - style enslavement of women, of course you'll be offended, just as you'll be offended by *ahything* a prolifer says.

[sasob]

Sounds to me like the guy has spent the better part of his political career playing to the various bigotries of his perceived constituency. In other words: he's said anything he thought might get him elected - no matter how outrageous.

[Elizabeth Nolan Brown]

If only he had just stuck to income taxes. If only all the conservatives had just stuck to income taxes...

[Sam Haysom]

I wonder the same thing about libertarians. Honestly huge self awareness deficit here.

[Cytotoxic]

The difference is Libertarians have a use beyond complaining about taxes while conservatives don't.

[jmomls]

Yup, libertarian's alternate uses include: endlessly bitching about the cops, being reflexively anti-war, being reflexively pro-open borders, being isolationist tools.

[kbolino]

being isolationist tools

The world yearns for us!

[The Immaculate Trouser]

If only he'd stuck to income taxes, he would have compared the coercion of the income tax to the 14th Am-criminalized chattel slavery, as many libertarians have done -- and been accused of being "pro-slavery" by an editorialist who doesn't actually understand argument by analogy.

[Paul.]

I've got a better question, why shouldn't a man be free to use his superior strength to force you to provide any service?

[Scarecrow Repair]

Because Colt.

[Episiarch]

That's what government is for, Paul. Duh.

[Cytotoxic]

This is why the TP keeps not succeeding: they select terrible candidates like this guy and Bevin. It's not the media, it's you.

[Sam Haysom]

Youve got a point when compared to the Libertarian Party's record of helping to elect democrats I imagine the Tea Party would seem unsuccessful. But thinking it over shouldnt you really be comparing nationally elected libertarains (none and never) to natioablly elected Tea Party candidates (quite a few a likely growing).

[Cytotoxic]

DUR DUR MUH TEAM

[Notorious G.K.C.]

This reminds me of the Salon parody Twitter account: "Is this obscure state legislative candidate who said something controversial in 1990 the new face of the Republican Party?"

[Cytotoxic]

Nice try Eddie. RTFA, especially the part where it says he is the head of the Maine Tea Party.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Is this what you're referring to:

"a first-term representative who has "quickly established himself as a vocal leader" of the Maine GOP's tea party wing"

?

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

Republicans should probably drop the word "rape" from their vocabularies. High cost, no benefit.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Even when in Iowa schilling for farmers of Brassica napus?

[Iucundus (ex Damned Fool)]

Especially when shilling for farmers of Brassica napus. Can you imagine what will happen when the Jezebels of the world discover the connection between rape and Brassica?

[Heroic Mulatto]

My people call it "canola".

[Marktaylor]

In 1987 the enlightened ones were actually telling people that heterosexuals are just as likely to get HIV. Turns out that was not so much true as much as derp to stop people from thinking it was a gay disease. That want because it was a "crime against humanity" but they did let politics override medical information that could have saved lives.

[Trouser-Pod]

A woman's bodily autonomy comes second to either an embryo's or a man's claims on it

Because, pregnancy just occurs magically!

[jmomls]

I like how the Dems had to go all the way to the Chicago Tribune to find damning editorial copy against this guy. What, no local Maine newspapers could supply the party line?