City Official Resigns After Shocking Anti-LGBT Religious Rant At Public Meeting

A Sammamish planning commissioner who said LGBTQ+ people are “poisoning our kids” among other homophobic statements, resigned on Monday amid condemnation from the city and residents.

At the June 1 public meeting, Planning Commission member Wassim Fayed asserted that members of the LGBTQ+ community are “promoting diseases and infestation into the minds of our kids in schools” during a nearly six-minute-long tirade.

“People were created certain ways. But then to club certain people who choose a certain lifestyle and say they are among the minority, I don’t believe that is the right thing,” Fayed said. Citing his Muslim faith, he denounced Pride Month, calling LGBTQ+ people “some of the most wealthy, the most connected people.”

“I don’t believe that LGBTQ should be part of the minority,” Fayed added. “These are not a minority people who are disenfranchised.”

“These are people that are promoting diseases and infestation into the mind of our kids in schools,” he continued, parroting right-wing misinformation about the LGBTQ+ community. “I don’t believe this is a right way of life. God created us a male and a female, and to go and go against the creation of God and to spread diseases in the community is something that we should speak up against.”

Mayor Kali Clark, the city’s first out LGBTQ+ council member and mayor, accepted Fayed’s resignation the same day.

“To our youth, hate has no place here. To all of our residents, our city staff, leadership and our volunteers, hate has no place here,” she said.