Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) spent the past several days attacking a constituent for being gay. She also insinuated that she was worried that he would beat her up.
Mace, over the weekend, had an encounter with constituent Ely Murray-Quick at an Ulta beauty supply store. He asked her if she would be having any town halls this year. Mace immediately decided that Murray-Quick was gay – he is, but he didn’t mention it to her – and brought up her support for marriage equality, before shouting at him to “get the f**k out of my face.”
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On social media, Mace repeatedly made fun of Murray-Quick for wearing shorts that hit above the knee, calling them “daisy dukes.” Daisy dukes are short jean shorts that end just below the hip and are stereotypically considered women’s clothes, and Murray-Quick’s shorts were clearly not daisy dukes.
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Mace repeated the line about “daisy dukes” on social media, perhaps to draw attention to and mock Murray-Quick’s sexuality.
Some unhinged lunatic, a man, wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store, got in my face today. Dems are nuts. So I went off – and I won’t be backing down.
I hold the line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
In the midst of questioning Murray-Quick’s masculinity and sexuality, Mace also said that she thought he was going to assault her.
“I felt threatened and harassed,” she said on Fox News. “And as someone who’s experienced trauma in her life—and a lot of women will understand what I’m talking about—when some guy gets in your face and approaches you in an aggressive manner that he did, and you feel like you are in danger, instinctively, as women who’ve been through trauma, who’ve survived sexual assault, survived domestic abuse, you have two options. You can fight or flee, and… I’m a fighter. I’ve never stood back down from a fight.”
She actually posted a video of their conversation to social media where it’s clear that Murray-Quick is not in her face, and, while he got a bit sarcastic, he wasn’t shouting angrily at her. He’s standing at some distance from her while asking about the town halls. And she’s the first one to get aggressive in the encounter, shouting “f**k you” at Murray-Quick repeatedly.
But Murray-Quick said that being the target of a Republican politician has inspired him to get more involved.
“A fire was lit,” he told Advocate. “Being a gay man in South Carolina, I’ve had my fair share of hurtful insults thrown my way. And I’ve given myself a thicker skin because of it. So a simple ‘f**k you’ from Nancy Mace isn’t going to hurt me the way that she thinks it does.”
“She believes, ‘Hey, I voted for gay marriage twice. You owe me everything,’” he continued. “Which couldn’t be anything further from the truth.”
“There are bigger issues I want to vote on, and I want to see it resolved. Insurance, health care, the education system in South Carolina will consistently rank the lowest in the state… and she’s not addressing the reason.”
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