Remember back in February when our freshly re-elected Mayor, Mark “No Pride Proclamations in My Town” McBrayer, proudly endorsed Abraham Enriquez for Congress? McBrayer praised the 31-year-old candidate for having the “courage and conviction” to uphold West Texas conservative values. Well, it turns out Enriquez has been holding onto those values real tight—right alongside his smartphone, where he was allegedly scrolling Grindr for a little extra-biblical fellowship.
According to a bombshell report from Current Revolt, a former lover has come forward with some spicy 2017 iMessage receipts. The timing is absolute chef’s kiss: at the exact same time Enriquez was serving as student body vice president at Abilene Christian University—and publicly bragging about vetoing a pro-LGBT student group to protect “traditional marriage”—he was allegedly assuring a guy on Grindr that his explicit photo was “perfect.” Nothing says “grandson of a preacher” quite like managing a secret boyfriend while your mom threatens to disown you if you don’t stand on “biblical truth.”
Enriquez, whose current campaign platform includes banning pride flags and demanding the Ten Commandments be plastered on every federal building, has the backing of Governor Greg Abbott and Lubbock’s finest political elites. He also founded Bienvenido, a conservative Hispanic outreach group, though its website hasn’t been updated since May of last year and features default placeholder text. Clearly, Abraham has been a little too busy navigating his own private outreach programs to worry about maintaining a functional campaign calendar.
But hey, look on the bright side, Hub City: since Mayor McBrayer has spent the last three years completely ignoring local citizens sitting-in for a city Pride Month proclamation, maybe he’ll finally sign off on one now that his hand-picked congressional favorite knows how to work a gay dating app better than his own website.
If you want to see the performance art that set this entire circus in motion, look no further than Enriquez’s frequent campaign stops at Lubbock’s Trinity Church. In his January 25 debut, Senior Pastor Carl Toti introduced Enriquez during the church’s weekly “worldview segment”, openly declaring that he will always publicly back office-seekers from the Trinity family while paradoxically swearing the presentation wasn’t about politics. Enriquez took the pulpit, pinky-swore he wasn’t standing there as a political candidate , and immediately launched into a campaign speech retelling his college crusade where he vetoed a pro-LGBT student group. He fondly recalled surviving a campus impeachment effort solely because his mom threatened to ban him from the house for life if he resigned, proving that his steadfast defense of “biblical truth” was heavily motivated by the fear of missing a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner.
By March 1, Enriquez was back on stage “by popular demand”—which he immediately clarified meant he was begging Pastor Carl for the microphone. After warning the flock about the evils of woke sports and gender clinics, he pivoted to crown himself the district’s “most eligible bachelor”. In a bit of foreshadowing that has since aged like milk left out in the West Texas sun, Enriquez explicitly warned the congregation against the perils of digital romance, stating, “while others have dating apps, which by the way, I don’t recommend… I have a Pastor Carl” acting as his matchmaker. As it turns out, you don’t really need Tinder when you allegedly already know how to navigate Grindr like a pro.
Enriquez’s third appearance on May 3—just weeks ahead of his May 26 Republican primary runoff —saw him crank the culture-war paranoia up to eleven. Bypassing his standard rants about weed and abortion, he warned the flock about a local “mosque disguised as a unity center” operating right in our backyard and railed against the terrifying threat of “Islamification”. He promised to join the “Sharia Free Caucus” in Congress before dropping the ultimate punchline: his “biggest policy advisor” doesn’t come from Washington D.C. or Austin, but is the exact pastor standing behind the Trinity pulpit three times every Sunday. Because why consult actual constitutional lawyers when you can get your federal policy dictates straight from a guy who treats the separation of church and state like a polite suggestion?
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