Anti-LGBT+ professor who compared same-sex marriage to ‘rape’ found dead in home
University of North Carolina Wilmington professor of criminology Mike Adams. (MikeSAdams/ Twitter)
An anti-LGBT+ university professor, who called trans people “mentally ill” and compared same-sex marriage to “rape”, has been found dead in his home.
University of North Carolina Wilmington professor of criminology Mike Adams was found dead in his home in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Thursday, July 23 at 12.30 pm.
According to Portland City Daily, New Hanover County 911 records show that Adams had suffered a gunshot wound, although a cause of death has not been officially reported.
The anonymous 911 caller contacted emergency services after Adams’s car had been parked outside his home for several days without any sign of the professor.
The caller said he had been “erratic for the last few weeks” and “under a lot of stress”.
There were at least four petitions to remove the anti-LGBT+ professor.
Mike Adams was found just days before he was due to take an early retirement on August 1, after blistering backlash over “misogynistic, xenophobic, transphobic, homophobic [and] racist rhetoric”.
He had reached a $500,000 settlement with the University of North Carolina Wilmington in exchange for his retirement.
At least four petitions were set up to demand that Adams be fired from the university, with one stating: “Adams has a history of spewing misogynistic, xenophobic, transphobic, homophobic, racist rhetoric… Is this reflective of the kind of people you support, UNCW?
“Because if so, then you are not the inclusive, welcoming university that you claim to be.”
In late May, Adams compared lockdown restrictions in North Carolina to slavery, writing on Twitter: “This evening I ate pizza and drank beer with six guys at a six seat table top.
“I almost felt like a free man who was not living in the slave state of North Carolina. Massa Cooper, let my people go!”
Adams frequently contributed to right-wing website Townhall, and in one 2016 column titled “Rape Wins” he compared same-sex marriage to “rape”.
In 2013, his Facebook account was removed and he wrote on Twitter: “Facebook shut down my account for posting the following: ‘Gay couples do not deserve equal benefits because they do not equally benefit society.'”
FB shut down my account for posting the following: "Gay couples do not deserve equal benefits because they do not equally benefit society."
— Mike S. Adams (@MikeSAdams) June 28, 2013
It must be fun to be a progressive. You just sit around and defend things that are not real such as gay marriage and climate change.— Mike S. Adams (@MikeSAdams) May 15, 2019
The anti-LGBT+ professor frequently attacked trans people online. Referring to the US trans military ban, he wrote in 2016: “A nation that allows the mentally ill to serve in combat is not far from extinction.”
A nation that allows the mentally ill to serve in combat is not far from extinction.— Mike S. Adams (@MikeSAdams) July 3, 2016
In comments about gender confirmation surgery, he said it should be “illegal for doctors to multilate [sic] the genitals of the mentally ill”, and wrote in another tweet: “Removing the genitals of the mentally ill was done by Nazi doctors in the name of eugenics. Now our doctors do it in the name of diversity.”
Removing the genitals of the mentally ill was done by Nazi doctors in the name of eugenics. Now our doctors do it in the name of diversity.— Mike S. Adams (@MikeSAdams) February 11, 2016
The professors critics have said that while his death should be mourned, his comments should not be forgotten.
According to Advocate, LJ Randolph Jr, another professor at the university, wrote on Twitter: “Please do mourn Mike Adams’s death, but don’t sugarcoat his rhetoric as merely ‘controversial’ or ‘racially charged’.
“He was blatantly racist, homophobic, and sexist, and his own words left no room for interpretation on any of that.”
New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating Adams’s death and has not yet released any further information.
