Extreme anti-LGBTQ+ mayoral candidate won’t apologize for inviting Nazis to candidate forum

Gabrielle Hanson, the far-right Republican mayoral candidate in Franklin, Tennessee, refused to apologize for inviting Neo-Nazis to a candidate forum last week, despite passionate rebukes from her fellow city council members.

“I’m not going to denounce anybody their right to be whatever it is that they want to be, whether I agree with what they do in their personal life or not,” Hanson said of the self-proclaimed white supremacists she invited to the event to provide security.

Related: Deranged anti-LGBTQ+ GOP candidate taps white supremacist group for security

“I’m not a cuckservative, I’m an actual literal Nazi,” their leader said.

“We don’t discriminate in this community against anyone.”

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That assertion came after Hanson’s messianic claim to council members that “you reap what you sow.”

“You planted seeds for years and years against our citizens and they’re coming to harvest. This is what the citizens of Franklin are getting, because of bad decisions.”

In a Telegram post earlier this year, Brad Lewis, a self-described friend of Hanson’s and a leader of the white supremacist group Tennessee Active Club that accompanied her to the event, proudly claimed, “I’m not a cuckservative, I’m an actual literal Nazi.”

“Those things are called spiritual repercussions,” Hanson lectured the room, “and they do come back to you and it’s easy to shift all the blame. I just happened to arrive at a time where everything was starting to crumble.”

Hanson’s colleagues could barely contain their outrage.

Alderman Beverly Burger asked her, “Is it your mission to divide our city? Because you are doing a bang-up job of it right now.”

“What’s been going on lately has to stop and has to stop now,” Alderman Jason Potts demanded. “Fear and intimidation and hatred have no home in Franklin.”

Said Alderman Brandy Blanton: “It’s embarrassing to end up on HBO, to end up on MSNBC – and not for the good stuff.”

Hanson was voted onto the Franklin City Council two years ago with the backing of the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty.

Now she’s challenging 12-year incumbent Republican Mayor Dr. Ken Moore for the small town’s top job. Early voting started October 4th and runs through next Thursday. Election day is October 24th.

The candidate’s campaign has been mired in controversy and scandal for months.

Early last month, a Hanson campaign aide went on a tear-filled tirade at a council meeting claiming LGBTQ+ people are giving children buttplugs in her hometown and training them on how they’re used.

In April, Hanson claimed to have “full knowledge” from an inside source that the mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school in March involved a scandalous “love triangle.” The unsubstantiated claim led to an investigation by the Franklin Ethics Commission.

Another investigation ensued after Hanson, in her official capacity, urged Nashville International Airport to withdraw its donation to a Juneteenth celebration. The city’s Ethics Commission recommended that the Board of Mayor and Aldermen censure her.

In September it was revealed Hanson had pleaded no contest to promoting prostitution while she was a college student in Dallas, and that she had used photos of strangers culled from social media to falsely portray them as members of an “executive committee” in support of her candidacy.

And last week, Hanson was confronted with evidence her husband, a one-time Congressional candidate, campaigned in an American flag Speedo at Chicago Pride in 2008, with her encouragement. This despite her anti-LGBTQ+ claims of “protecting children” from “sexualizing” behavior in Franklin or anywhere else.

In another brewing scandal, a persistent critic of Hanson is charging the candidate has been complicit in death threats leveled at her by Hanson’s white supremacist supporters.

The woman confronted Hanson at a candidate meet and greet last Friday with evidence of one threatening post which doxxed her and added menacingly, “I think it’s about time that her and her kind be silenced