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A North Dakota lawmaker who sent an explicit photo of himself to another man says the exchange being made public is retaliation for a recent vote against expanding gay rights.


Rep. Randy Boehning, a 52-year-old Republican legislator from Fargo, says a Capitol employee told him a fellow lawmaker vowed to out him as gay if he continued to vote against bills granting gays legal protections against discrimination.

Boehning refused to identify at this point who he believes is behind the purported political payback for his vote against Senate Bill 2279, the third such bill defeated in the past six years by North Dakota legislators.

The exchange came to light when Dustin Smith, a 21-year-old Bismarck man with no known connections to the Capitol, contacted The Forum earlier this month, saying he recognized Boehning from a gay dating smartphone app called Grindr. Chatting under the user name Top Man!, Boehning sent Smith sexually suggestive messages and, in the early morning hours of March 12, an unsolicited photo of his penis, according to exchanges reviewed by The Forum.

"How can you discriminate against the person you're trying to pick up?" Smith said in a recent interview.
When first questioned about the messages two weeks ago, Boehning declined to comment on whether he sent the explicit photo and messages.

But on Saturday he confirmed he was Top Man! and said he doesn't think sending a graphic photo of himself to a stranger is a lapse in judgment, as Grindr is an adult site where users often exchange such images.

andy7171 wrote:The struggle is real!

JohnStOnge wrote:I think it's great. Even though he's homosexual he can see that it's wrong to say other people can't discriminate against homosexuals.

The whole paradigm we have in this country whereby discrimination on the part of non governmental entities is prohibited by law is wrong. People should be free to discriminate on the basis of whatever they want to discriminate on. If they can't do that, they're not free.

Good for him for not trying to force other people to validate his lifestyle.

Chizzang wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:I think it's great. Even though he's homosexual he can see that it's wrong to say other people can't discriminate against homosexuals.

The whole paradigm we have in this country whereby discrimination on the part of non governmental entities is prohibited by law is wrong. People should be free to discriminate on the basis of whatever they want to discriminate on. If they can't do that, they're not free.

Good for him for not trying to force other people to validate his lifestyle.

I love you so much John..!!!
I was desperately hoping you'd come up with something awesome for this thread
You make me so proud

Baldy wrote:

Chizzang wrote:

I love you so much John..!!!
I was desperately hoping you'd come up with something awesome for this thread
You make me so proud

I concur with the consensus, Chizz. This is 3 or 4 threads now where you're bringing your A-game.

Makes me believe there's still hope for kalm.

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:In JSOs pool..................

Baldy wrote:

Chizzang wrote:

I love you so much John..!!!
I was desperately hoping you'd come up with something awesome for this thread
You make me so proud

I concur with the consensus, Chizz. This is 3 or 4 threads now where you're bringing your A-game.

Makes me believe there's still hope for kalm.

JohnStOnge wrote:You know, it really is possible for a person to be capable of saying that they should be free to do what they want to do while on also saying that other people should be free to choose to discriminate against them for doing it. Like it's possible for someone to say they should be free to engage in homosexual behavior while other people should be free to choose not to associate with them if they want. They should be free to live with a member of their own sex, for example, but someone who owns a rent house should be free to choose not to rent the house to them for them to do that in.

Oh...and someone COULD say that they should be free to live with a member of their own sex but that they have no interest in forcing other people who don't want to to recognize the relationship as "marriage" to do so.

That sort of thing.

I think a homosexual who opposes the homosexual agenda to force other people to validate the homosexual lifestyle is actually a whole lot better person than one who wants to force everybody else to look at things like they do.