N.D. lawmaker who voted against LGBT protections admits he’s gay after being caught on Grindr

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Carlson said he may call for an internal legislative investigation into “blackmail” after Boehning returns and he can confer with him.

“I have not met with Randy face-to-face,” Carlson said. “I will talk to him and see if that’s true.”

House Minority Leader Kenton Onstad, a Democrat from Parshall, and Fargo Democratic Rep. Josh Boschee, the state’s first openly gay lawmaker, said no one from their party threatened Boehning about outing him as payback for his vote.

“We had nothing to do with it,” Onstad said.

Boschee said he worried for Boehning and called the fellow lawmaker’s sexting “probably questionable judgment.”

“I just hope he has a support network that sees him through this,” Boschee said.

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More than 35 GOP lawmakers signed a letter that was intended to be sent to North Dakota newspapers defending Boehning, but the decision to send it was scrapped, said Rep. Rick Becker, R-Bismarck, the letter’s author.

“Randy did not want to drag any more people into this,” Becker said.