Michigan GOP candidate criticized over rape comments he says he tells his daughters
.png "Robert Regan, a Republican candidate favored to win his race in Michigan’s 74th District, faced backlash over comments he made on a livestream.")
A Michigan candidate for state House is facing criticism over remarks he made about rape during a livestream, local media reports.
Robert Regan, a Republican running for Michigan’s 74th District House seat, said on the livestream that he tells his three daughters that “if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it,” The Detroit News reported.
He made the comments during the show “Your Defending Fathers,” hosted by the conservative group The Coalition to Rescue Michigan, The Detroit News reported. Regan’s comment emerged during a conversation about whether Republicans should continue to argue the 2020 election was stolen, The Detroit Free Press reported.
“That’s not how we roll, that’s not how I won this election. We go right at it,” Regan continued, according to a video shared of the incident on the platform Rumble.
Regan later said he was using rape as an analogy to convey that “nothing is inevitable,” Bridge Michigan reported.
His comments are reminiscent of when Republican Clayton Williams, who in 1990 was running for Texas governor against Ann Richards, said ″If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it″ — when comparing rape to bad weather. Richards won the race — marking the last time a Republican candidate for governor has lost in Texas.
Regan, who earlier this month won a special primary for the House seat, later told the hosts of “Your Defending Fathers” that he was trying to convey that the GOP is “sick and tired of the establishment telling us, ‘you just have to sit there and take it,’” The Detroit News reported.
He also released a statement on his website, saying that his point was that “even in the face of insurmountable odds, we fight, always we fight.”
But Regan’s comments were quickly condemned from both sides of the aisle.
The Michigan Freedom Fund, a conservative nonprofit, called Regan’s comments “disgusting” and “dehumanizing” in a statement, Bridge Michigan reported.
“I teach my four young daughters to stand up for themselves, to know their worth, and to fight back and speak out against creeps like Regan,” Tori Sachs, executive director of the organization, said in the statement, according to Bridge Michigan. “RJ Regan doesn’t belong anywhere near the state Capitol, and that is why we endorsed and supported his opponent.”
Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, a Democrat from Livonia, said in a Tweet that as someone who’s “been in a situation where rape was inevitable,” she knows there’s “nothing enjoyable about it.”
Mark Huizenga, a Republican who previously occupied the House seat Regan is seeking, said Regan’s words do not reflect the state’s Republican Party.
“As a Christian, a public servant and a father of two daughters, I find Robert Regan’s comments about sexual assault to be revolting and immoral, and I strongly denounce them,” Huizenga said in a statement, according to The Detroit Free Press.
Regan has run for the House seat several times — first in 2014, and then in 2018 and 2020 — Bridge Michigan reported. During his last attempt at securing the office, he made national news when his daughters posted on Twitter asking Michiganders not to vote for their father, The Hill reported.
“If you’re in Michigan and 18+ (please) for the love of god do not vote for my dad for state rep,” Regan’s daughter, Stephanie Regan, said, according to The Hill. “Tell everyone.”
Regan responded to his daughter’s criticism by saying that he wasn’t completely surprised, as he believes students who go to “liberal university campuses…get sucked into this Marxist, communist ideology,” The Hill reported.
Regan has also been criticized for other comments he’s made, including one calling Russia’s attacks on Ukraine a “fake war just like the fake pandemic,” Bridge Michigan reported.
Regan will face Democrat Carol Glanville in the May 3 general election for the House seat.
Regan’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.
This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 2:18 PM with the headline "Michigan GOP candidate criticized over rape comments he says he tells his daughters."