A North Carolina lawmaker called Abraham Lincoln a 'tyrant' and compared him to Hitler
Larry Pittman, a Republican representative from Concord, North Carolina, was defending a bill he filed on Tuesday that would restore a ban on same-sex marriage, in defiance of the US Supreme Court.
One commenter told Pittman to "get over" the marriage ruling, eliciting the lawmaker's head-turning response.
"And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort (of) tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional," Pittman said.
The seemingly unprompted comparison to Hitler drew immediate backlash from other commenters, one of whom asked him to explain why he thought the Civil War was "unnecessary." Pittman's office did not respond to a request for clarification.
The "Uphold Historical Marriage Act," sponsored by Pittman and three other Republicans, says that the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling on same-sex marriage "is null and void in the State of North Carolina," and contains language from the Bible. The bill would order state government to return to Amendment One, a same-sex marriage ban that was approved by voters in a 2012 referendum.
The bill is not expected to be heard.
Pittman's Hitler comment comes one day after White House press secretary Sean Spicer got into hot water for comparing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Hitler and misstating facts about the Holocaust. Spicer apologized for the comparison Tuesday evening.