Seelbach’s rant was directed at Democratic Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes who criticized newly elected President Joe Biden in a tweet for signing an executive order allowing transgender athletes to participate as their identified gender in high school and college sports. Seelbach, a fellow Democrat and staunch advocate of LGBTQ rights, took exception to Rhodes’ comments about the teenage daughters of suburban Republican women now having to “share (their) locker room with biological males.” Seelbach responded by calling him “a bigoted piece of trash,” adding “F(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk) off Dusty A(asterisk)(asterisk) Rhodes.”
Our issue isn’t with Seelbach standing up for gay and transgender kids, but with the way he did it. He let himself get down in the gutter with Rhodes, thereby undermining a valid argument and surrendering the moral high ground. This isn’t the first time Seelbach has made crude and inappropriate comments via social media, and his text messages were among the most sophomoric of the bunch in the “Gang of Five” text messaging scandal in 2018. It’s particularly disturbing that Seelbach admittedly thought about the post ahead of time and still chose to hit “send.” His inability to govern his passions, however well-intentioned, might one day be his political undoing.