LGBTQ youth group’s Nampa library poster irks far-right legislator, who meets resistance

BOISE – Far-right state Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, reached out to multiple officials and took to social media this week to complain about a LGBTQ+ youth club’s poster on a bulletin board at the Nampa Public Library – a poster a club official said has been there for 18 months.

But even some other Republicans didn’t agree with his concerns and assumptions, or didn’t respond to him – perhaps another example of divisions within the Republican Party in the state. Lenney did not return two requests for comment.

“I personally believe that there should be varying opinions within our political factions because it makes for healthy debate and good governance,” Nampa City Council Member Natalie Jangula told the Idaho Statesman in an email. “Unfortunately, over the past few years, there are Republican factions that have infiltrated Idaho who only support constitutional rights if they are in alignment with what they believe. That is dangerous, irresponsible and un-American.”

The poster advertised a group called CLUTCH, which meets on Thursdays to provide an “affirming space in our community for LGBTQ+ youth.”

This week’s activity was yarn crafts, according to the club’s Instagram. On X (formerly Twitter), Lenney wrote that it was a “groomer” group where children talked to adults about sex.

“I think that’s an incredibly weird thing to say,” said Mindy OldenKamp, CLUTCH’s operations director. “We have not heard anything from him, so we’d be happy to explain who we are and what we do. And I think that it’s just a really strange comment to make about a group that you clearly don’t know anything about.”

CLUTCH has had a poster up on the community board for a year and a half, OldenKamp told the Idaho Statesman.

Lenney’s comments drew internal Nampa pushback from Jangula. In emails shared with the Statesman, Jangula told Lenney that she wasn’t sure where his accusations came from and asked him whether he had done any research into CLUTCH.

“As a constitutional conservative, I will never stand in the way of anyone’s rights that I believe God has given them,” Jangula wrote. “The right to peacefully and lawfully assemble, even if I don’t agree with it, is something I will defend.”

In follow-up emails, Lenney wrote that the two were clearly “lightyears apart on LGBT issues.”

“Maybe one takeaway for you – conservatism is about actually conserving real values – faith, traditional family values, etc,” Lenney wrote. “But as Andrew Breitbart pointed out, politics is downstream from culture, and it looks like the LGBT woke agenda has indeed infiltrated Nampa.”

Breitbart was a conservative journalist who founded Breitbart News, a far-right opinion and news website, after being a co-founder of Huffington Post.

Over the past 15 years, acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities and rights has dramatically increased, both in politics and culture, though some data indicate that support is slipping after hitting record highs.

In 2004, before he was president, Barack Obama said in an interview that marriage was between a man and a woman, according to TIME magazine. By 2012, he supported same-sex marriage, which has been legal nationwide since 2015, just before Obama left office.

A 2022 Statesman survey indicated that over half of Idahoans believe people should be protected from discrimination based on their gender identity or sexual orientation – protections that Republicans in the Legislature have opposed adding to the state’s Human Rights Act.

OldenKamp, CLUTCH’s operations director, grew up in Nampa and said she personally has seen things get better and more diverse.

There are still struggles, however, such as when Nampa Mayor Debbie Kling put out a statement earlier this year saying that the first Canyon County Pride Festival didn’t reflect her personal beliefs – but that the city legally had to let it happen, a response to complaints from people who wanted the event canceled.

Kling, along with Police Chief Joe Huff, did not respond to Lenney’s messages to the city about the CLUTCH poster, according to Nampa spokesperson Amy Bowman.

Lenney did round up support online from the usual far-right suspects, such as the Idaho Liberty Dogs.

The city’s library director told Lenney that the poster was in line with the organization’s community events posting policy. The library provides public bulletin boards, but does not imply endorsement of what is posted, according to the policy.

During the whole situation, OldenKamp said CLUTCH has received overwhelmingly positive messages.

“CLUTCH was really born out of the desire to do something better for LGBTQ youth,” OldenKamp said. “… For the most part, the actual community, the people who are neighbors and people that we do day-to-day life with, are super supportive and show up and just say, ‘You have every right to exist just like we do.’ ”