William Lawrence, the far-left Democratic nominee for a competitive House race in Michigan, called for "abolishing the institution of marriage," arguing that because it "comes from a particular religious and cultural background," it is at odds with the "separation of church and state," video footage obtained by the Washington Free Beacon shows.
Lawrence, who is running against Republican incumbent Tom Barrett in Michigan's swingy Seventh Congressional District, made the comments during a debate at Swarthmore College, a private liberal arts school where annual tuition runs nearly $70,000, just before the 2012 presidential election. Asked about the legalization of gay marriage, Lawrence said he is "for gay marriage, against all marriage."
"The institution of marriage, um, as a, you know—it's sanctioned by the state, it's a tax benefit—that's actually privileging a certain form of family life, which is religious, and it comes from a particular religious and cultural background," he said. "So if we're talking about the separation of church and state, we should be abolishing the institution of marriage altogether. That's all I'll say about that for now."
It's the latest radical remark to resurface as Lawrence runs to represent a district President Donald Trump narrowly carried in 2024. Lawrence, a founding member of the far-left climate group Sunrise Movement who recently allowed his Democratic Socialists of America membership to lapse, has also called for "destroying the American way of life" and said he wants to "redistribute all the land and all the money" to make up for America's "evil deeds." Lawrence also called the fatal collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge a "climate activist's dream" as it would "block 2.5 million tons of coal exports for weeks and weeks and weeks on end."
Lawrence made other bizarre comments during the debate, which was hosted by the Daily Gazette, Swarthmore's daily campus newspaper at the time, and took place months before Lawrence graduated from the college with a degree in sociology. He declared that "we should not have guns" and "need to move beyond the Second Amendment," said America "should have open borders" and "immediately legalize all the undocumented individuals who are residing within the United States," and called for a "massive" transition away from oil and gas. He also called for a nationwide "release of all debt"—"that means credit card debt, mortgage debt, and, uh, as well as student debt"—and called abortion a "fundamental" right regardless of gender.
"For women, and for everyone, the right to contraception and abortion is fundamental for people's health and safety, whether you're, whether you're a man or a woman or any other gender," Lawrence said.
It's not the only time Lawrence has railed against mainstream social institutions. In 2021 and 2022, he wrote, "Fuck isolation and the nuclear family domicile," and called the nuclear family structure an "isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society," CNN reported. The Democratic Socialists of America has also called to "abolish the nuclear family," which it says is "a structure built to preserve capitalism."
Lawrence became the Democratic nominee in Michigan's seventh district in August, when he defeated former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink and Navy SEAL veteran Matt Maasdam in a contentious primary. Both Brink and Maasdam received endorsements from establishment Democrats, splitting the more moderate lane and handing the race to Lawrence. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee "quietly worked to help Maasdam in the final weeks" but did not endorse him, according to Punchbowl News, even as the group endorsed in other competitive primaries. The Congressional Black Caucus condemned Lawrence during the primary over Lawrence's 2024 remarks calling black political leaders a "pillar" of the "establishment, capitalist, imperialist American power."
As the Congressional Black Caucus opposed Lawrence, he received support from another left-wing primary candidate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, who endorsed Lawrence in July. El-Sayed said he has known Lawrence "since he was an organizer a decade ago," not long after Lawrence's days at Swarthmore, where he led a group called Swarthmore Mountain Justice that called on the college to divest its endowment from oil and gas companies.
Lawrence has sought to distance himself from some of his past remarks. He recently told the Free Beacon he no longer supports open borders, though he did not address some of his other bombastic remarks. Lawrence quit the Democratic Socialists of America in July in order to foster "unity" in his campaign, and he has deleted hundreds of tweets in which he espoused far-left causes, including abolishing police departments and prisons. In those posts, Lawrence said he wanted then-West Virginia senator Joe Manchin to "hurry up and die" because he believed the centrist lawmaker was standing in the way of climate change legislation.
"Will has been happily married for over four years," Lawrence campaign communications director Nader Granmayeh told the Free Beacon in response to a request for comment. "Will's focus is on bringing down the cost of living and fighting corporate power on behalf of Michiganders."
Update 4:19 p.m.: This piece has been updated with comment from the Lawrence campaign.
