The North Carolina Democratic Party held elections over the weekend to decide its leadership and the event took a surprisingly anti-LGBT turn.
Patsy Keever, who was the vice chairwoman, won the election to lead the state party for the next two years. She defeated Janice Covington, who made history as the first transgender candidate to run for North Carolina Democratic Party chair.
Keever had already found herself in hot water over her treatment of Covington. At a forum of all the candidates last month, Keever called Covington "a man," a comment that Covington considered a "bigoted slur."
Covington responded during the forum that "there ain’t no man left in here, honey," and later said that she is "a proud transgender woman and for me to be violated in this way at a public forum by a leader of the party was completely out of line."
Equality North Carolina said that Keever’s comment was "inexcusable."
Keever apologized for the comment, but her supporters continued to pile on during the election.
Lee Sartain, a "policy wonk" at North Carolina State University who was quite frustrated that the "crazy caucus" was running against Keever, wrote that it was the "gayest" party meeting he had ever been to and urged those involved to "quit wasting time."
His sentiment was shared by Wes Helton, the Democratic party chairman of Rutherford County, who retweeted the comment and also added an "Amen!"
Both Sartain and Helton later wrote celebratory messages after Keever won the election.
Sartain did not respond to a request for clarification about what made the weekend elections the "gayest" he had ever been to.
Update 2:15 p.m.: Sartain says that the comment "was just an inside joke taken to the twitter-verse based on remarks being made by a previous State Chair." He added that it was not "related to the transgendered candidate that ran for chair."