Santee politician Randy Voepel protests against media’s attempts to link him to his grandchild’s alleged crimes

“When I saw the news, my first thought was for the victims,” says Assemblyman Randy Voepel (R-Santee) of the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs. “My second thought was for my poor grandson, who may have done something really terrible. And my third thought was, ‘Well, here they come.’ And sure enough, the next day’s newspaper has a long piece about my right-wing views, so-called ‘hateful rhetoric and lies about LGBTQ people,” and a link to an op-ed that calls my city ‘Klantee.’

“Let me ask you something. There are a lot of gang murders in South Central LA, right? So when you meet a fellow from South Central LA, do you wonder if maybe he’s a gangbanger? Or do you find that morally abhorrent? Yet when you hear about somebody hailing from Santee, you feel totally comfortable lumping them in with some joker wearing a Klan hood with a Confederate flag on his truck. That’s placism, pure and simple, and it’s the kind of societal evil that keeps America torn asunder. Just like when I go to visit family in Missouri, and they ask me if I’ve turned gay yet from living in Southern California.”