An Arizona GOP Supporter Says He Wants to Put The LGBTQ Population In “Isolation Camps”

Ethan Schmidt, a GOP supporter from Arizona, posted several videos where he urges the government of the United States to isolate the LGBTQ community because he blames “the LGBT community” and “pride month” for monkeypox and wants “all the businesses that are affiliated with LGBT” and pride month “to be shutdown” claiming they are “spreading the virus.”

Schmidt is a self-proclaimed “good friend” with Kari Lake, the Trump-endorsed candidate that won the Republican gubernatorial primary in Arizona. The relationship between Schmidt and Lake is unclear, but Schmidt has posted videos appearing with Lake in GOP rallies, has mentioned him in several videos and both of them used to follow each other on Instagram. For example, in one of his videos, he says this: “Kari Lake and I are going to round up all the folks in the LGBT community, and bring them to quarantine camps, it’s for their own safety.”

Schmidt has a long history of posting content harassing the LGBTQ community. For example, in another video, he threatens Target by saying that they should ban him from all their stores in the US because he is going to “hunt” LGBTQ persons in “every store” they have.