The co-chair of Colorado Springs’ chapter of the ACLU has resigned after posting a message on Facebook suggesting Donald Trump voters should be told they will be shot.
His message also referenced Joseph Goebbels, a Nazi propagandist who vehemently supported executing Jews through a plan called the “final solution.”
“The thing is, we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, ‘This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before election day,’ ” Loring Wirbel’s post on Monday said.
It continued: “They’re not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there’s always force.”
Wirbel told The Denver Post on Friday that he could not comment on the situation because of “legal reasons.” On Thursday, however, he he could see how the post was offensive.
“It was intended totally as a joke,” Wirbel told the newspaper, which first reported the post. “They are taking that stuff out of (context). It’s smear politics.”
Wirbel’s post no longer appears on his Facebook page.
According to the ACLU’s website, Wirbel also served as the chapter’s representative to the state board.
The El Paso County Republican Party had called for Wirbel’s resignation on Friday morning.
“It was a shocking statement,” the group’s executive director, Daniel Cole, said of Wirbel’s post. “It’s totally unacceptable considering what Colorado Springs went through recently. I’m glad that he resigned.”
A Planned Parenthood branch in Colorado Springs who killed three people dead and injured 12 others. Many in the community in the shootings’ wake.
The ACLU Colorado said in a statement Friday that it does not condone Wirbel’s Facebook comments.
“Our members, supporters and volunteers are free to express their own personal views and opinions in their personal lives,” the statement said. “We have fought for decades to preserve that right, as well, for all Coloradans, no matter how strongly we disagree with the content.”
The ACLU says personal posts, however, should not be mistaken as the views of the organization as a whole.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or @JesseAPaul
