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Texas Congressman Says US Should Not Make Gay Space Colonies

Texas Republican Louie Gohmert is in favor of building a Noah's Ark-like spaceship but is not in favor of putting gay people on it.
Screengrab: C-Span

Every once in a while, the US House of Representatives allows lawmakers to make "general speeches" on the floor so that they can put remarks about their pet issues on the official Congressional record. Thursday, Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert used this time to let everyone know that he firmly believes the US should not make gay space colonies.

The bizarre speech hit many notes—he started by calling trans people "perverse," then railed against gay marriage for a bit, before suggesting that, should humanity be faced with an Earth-ending event, we should definitely have a Noah's Ark-type spaceship that could perpetuate the human race but added that we should definitely not put gay people on this spaceship.

In a somewhat progressive move, Gohmert did acknowledge the existence of dinosaurs, which, I guess that's a win for science.

"I really wonder how many people in [Congress], who have the ultimate power to decide whether humanity would go forward or not—if it were an asteroid coming, something that would end humanity on earth as dinosaurs were ended at one time—we have a space ship that will go as Matt Damon did in the movie, plant a colony somewhere, we can have humans survive this terrible disaster about to befall. If you could decide what 40 people you put on the spacecraft that would save humanity, how many of those would be same sex couples?," Gohmert said.

"You're wanting to save humankind for posterity, basically a modern-day Noah, you have the opportunity to be a modern day Noah, you can preserve life," he continued, "How many same sex couples would you take from the animal kingdom and from humans to put on the spacecraft to perpetuate humanity and the wildlife kingdom?"

It's worth noting that Gohmert is doing just about everything he can to make sure we never hit a point where we're able to actually build a spacecraft capable of carrying humans and I guess the animal kingdom to safety: In March, he was one of only three lawmakers to vote against the "INSPIRE Women in Aerospace" bill, which supports additional funding for NASA programs that focus on encouraging girls to study science and tech topics.