Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger, the first openly-gay contender to vie for his party's nomination, was heckled during a stop in the key early primary state of New Hampshire last week, the Advocate reports.
Karger is a GOP political consultant conducting a long-shot campaign for the White House. The Republican hopeful did not qualify to participate in the presidential primary debate that took place in the Granite State last week.
"Go back to California, Fred, you’re not in the debate," says a woman to Karger in video of the confrontation. "You don’t belong here. You took up my time at the state House when I went up there to testify, and you don’t even belong in this state."
Karger can be seen laughing off the remarks in footage capturing the run-in.
The Advocate reports:
The woman who confronted Karger in the video, Karger said, was a Rick Santorum supporter who was apparently upset that Karger had testified in favor of marriage equality during a February state House hearing -- thereby taking away her own time to speak in favor of two bills that would repeal gay marriage in the state.
Karger suggested the encounter marked the first he's had with a heckler.
During last week's debate in New Hampshire, Karger shared his take on the forum with HuffPost's Jason Linkins:
The battle for marriage equality is the animating idea in Fred Karger's life and candidacy. What he heard on the subject left him feeling unimpressed, and made him itch to join the debate.
He emailed HuffPost: "Gay marriage. Wish I was on there! Wish I was on that stage to continue to fight bigotry within my party. It's really turning into a right-wingathon."
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