Missouri GOP Sec. Of State Candidate Valentina Gomez Posts Video Of Herself Burning LGBTQ Books With A Flamethrower

The Missouri GOP Secretary of State candidate Valentina Gomez posted a video of herself burning two books about the LGBTQ community with a flamethrower.

Gomez posted this video on many social media platforms, including X.

“When I’m Secretary of State, I will BURN all books that are grooming, indoctrinating, and sexualizing our children,” she wrote in the caption of her X post. “MAGA. America First.”

“This is what I will do to the grooming books when I become secretary of state,” Gomez stated in the video while rap music played in the background.

The GOP candidate then used a flamethrower to burn the books Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens by Kathy Belge and Marke Bieschke and Naked: Not Your Average Sex Encyclopedia by Myriam Daguzan Bernier.

“These books come from a Missouri public library,” Gomez said as the books kept burning. “When I’m in office, they will burn.”

The video then showed her burning the books again, an image of her holding up her flamethrower and finally, her campaign logo.

One of the authors was less than pleased with the stunt.

“She is burning my book in public to get votes, not fascist or scary at all,” Bieschke stated on X in response to this video. “Book banning is dangerous and book burning takes it to a whole new scary level. All Americans should be concerned that a candidate for public office not only thinks book burning is acceptable, but that it is something that will help her get elected.”

The visibility of the post on X had been restricted at one point, with a note saying that it “may violate X’s rules against Hateful Conduct.” This note was removed later on.

Some people compared Gomez’s actions to the Nazi book-burning campaigns in the 1930s when student groups burned tens of thousands of books in Germany and Austria that were viewed as “un-German.”

Gomez’s campaign website shows her ambitions for office.

“Valentina will drive economic growth by incentivizing local production of goods and services, nurturing businesses, and expanding opportunities within our state,” the campaign website stated.

“Valentina vehemently opposes subjecting children under 18 to transgender-related medical procedures, therapies, treatments, prescriptions, and exposure,” the website also mentioned. “The physical and emotional scars endured by our young ones in the name of the transgender industry are unacceptable and must be halted.”

Books featuring LGBTQ content have faced disproportionate targeting for bans in American schools and libraries. On top of this, over 12 states have laws restricting the ways classrooms talk about and teach gender and sexuality.

Most famously, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through his “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which forbids the discussion of sexual orientation below the third grade.

Some supporters of restricting these books and curricula, including Gomez, argued that exposing children to this material constitutes “grooming.”

LGBTQ advocates believe that this claim feeds into a false trope in which members of the community are cast as pedophiles.

According to a report from PEN America, a nonprofit group advocating for free expression in literature, Missouri banned 333 books during the 2022-23 academic year.

A report from the American Library Association showed that a total of 1,915 unique titles were challenged across America from January 1, 2023, to August 31, 2023, which is a 20% increase over the same period the previous year.

Last year, the city of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, made being openly gay in public illegal.

It was a “public decency” ordinance that listed many behaviors that it deemed “indecent,” such as “homosexuality” and “sexual intercourse.”

The opponents of the statute claimed that it banned individuals from being gay in public and contributed to the discrimination against the LGBTQ community. 

Five months after the statute was passed, the city revoked it.