Politics

Lauren Boebert makes vapid COVID-HIV comparison as her constituents are left feeling “humiliated”

Rep. Lauren Boebert, just hanging out at her restaurant with a gun, like a normal person
Rep. Lauren Boebert, just hanging out at her restaurant with a gun, like a normal person Photo: Jeffrey Beall/via Wikipedia

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is getting taken to the woodshed on Twitter for comparing COVID-19 restrictions to laws criminalizing HIV exposure, and now her constituents are saying they’re “humiliated and embarrassed” by her.

“The same liberals that legalized knowingly spreading HIV are now pushing Americans to take COVID tests or show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants,” she tweeted. “No. We’re not playing your games.”

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No one is suggesting putting people in jail because they knowingly entered buildings while sick with COVID-19.

Boebert is opposing measures that fall far short of criminalization in the case of coronavirus while apparently supporting the criminalization of HIV exposure, and then saying that people who don’t take the same contradictory stance that she does are the real hypocrites.

The Centers for Disease Control say that HIV exposure laws are “outdated and do not reflect our current understanding of HIV.”

“Further, these laws have been shown to discourage HIV testing, increase stigma, and exacerbate disparities,” they say on their website.

The Center for HIV Law & Policy also notes that there is evidence that HIV exposure laws – which 37 states have – result in harsher penalties for Black people than for white people living with HIV.

Boebert is one of Congress’s most vocal opponents of the Equality Act, which would ban public accommodations like restaurants from refusing to serve LGBTQ people. So she is willing to allow restaurants to refuse LGBTQ customers, but allowing them to refuse unvaccinated customers would be inconceivable.

The responses aren’t supportive of her comparison.

A recent report in Politico showed that people in Boebert’s Colorado district are getting fed up with her antics.

“I thought Lauren would be a great representative for small-business owners because she owns a small business, and she came from a humble lifestyle,” said Gus Garcia, who voted for her last year.

“But she has been so terribly disappointing. I am humiliated and embarrassed when she speaks on the House floor. She screams all the time, and she seems to have affiliated herself with white supremacists.”

One poll from April cited in the report says that 45% of people in her district have an unfavorable view of her, higher than the 42% who have a favorable view, a lackluster showing for just several months after she started her term in Congress.

Her lack of popularity has already attracted several local Democrats to start campaigns to unseat her in 2022, and even one Republican is already planning to challenge her in the primary.

“When she had the opportunity to support stimulus funding, she chose Trump over us. It’s very frustrating,” said Sol Sandoval, a community activist in Pueblo who is organizing a campaign to unseat Boebert.

“When I think of Lauren Boebert, I think of that expression ‘all hat and no cattle.’”

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