NORTH CAROLINA: GOP Rep Melts Down Over Blocking Of Marriage Ban, Compares Abraham Lincoln To Hitler

The Charlotte Observer reports:

A day after setting off one firestorm, a Cabarrus County lawmaker set off another Wednesday by calling Abraham Lincoln “the same sort (of) tyrant” as Adolf Hitler. Republican Rep. Larry Pittman of Cabarrus County made the comparison in a Facebook post in response to a comment criticizing a bill he’d introduced that would nullify the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage in North Carolina.

In his post, Pittman said North Carolina should uphold traditional marriage “in spite of the opinion of a federal court.” “And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it?” he wrote. “Lincoln was the same sort if (sic) tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional.” Pittman could not be reached Wednesday.

“Rep. Pittman and his ultra-conservative allies in the General Assembly have no sense of decency, no sense of shame and no sense of historical fact,” state Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin said in a statement. “I call on North Carolina’s Republican leaders to immediately condemn these outrageous and offensive statements.”