‘I Do Love Gays’: Democrat Senate Candidate Butchers Left’s Favorite Acronym In Bid To Seem Inclusive
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner told reporters he “loves[s] gays” while not seeming to know what the full acronym, LGBTQIA, means.
Platner told The Atlantic that another reporter asked him about his stance on “LGBTQIA+” issues — but when the outlet asked him a follow-up question about the meaning of the last two letters of the acronym, he simply replied, “That’s actually a good question.” The candidate later said he guessed that the “I” stood for intersex and the “A” stood for androgynous, which his assistant had to correct to “asexual.”
“It’s asexual, sorry. It’s asexual,” Platner, an oyster farmer and Navy veteran, later told the outlet.
When The Atlantic asked him what the “plus” at the end of the acronym meant, the left-wing candidate replied: “Everything else.”
The outlet also noted that Platner, at an unspecified point in the exchange, said, “I like gay people. »
Platner, backed by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has been mired in controversy in recent months but remains ahead in a series of Democratic primary polls over his intra-party opponent, Gov. Janet Mills. The Sanders-backed candidate was criticized for a tattoo — which he has since covered up — that resembled a Nazi symbol, as well as posts discovered on Reddit that appeared to downplay sexual assault and encourage fighting “fascism” with “a good semi-automatic rifle.” (RELATED: Democrat Graham Platner urges Americans to resist Trump’s ‘disgusting’ capture of Maduro and ‘gangsterism’.
The candidate told The Atlantic that he was working to expand his campaign mission beyond the “material conditions that people live in” to include social issues.
Mills, 78, who has served as governor of Maine since 2019, declared June Pride Month in 2022 and participated in the 2025 International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference.
Collins has also spearheaded bipartisan gay rights legislation, spearheading the Respect for Marriage Act alongside Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in 2022 to ensure that “all married couples, including same-sex and interracial couples, are entitled to the rights and responsibilities of marriage, regardless of the state in which they live.”
Some recent surveys Results from the state’s Democratic primary show Platner leading by significant margins over Mills, while other polls give the governor a lead. Collins, in office since 1997, retained his seat despite several Democratic attempts to oust him. She is currently the only Republican senator representing a state won by former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
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