Strange Bedfellows in West Hollywood Sheriff Republicans Share Stage With Anti-LGBTQ Activist

_{Sheriff candidate Oscar Martinez addresses a crowd as MassResistance California Field Director Arthur Schaper looks on (Sean Beckner-Carmitchel)}

By Sean Beckner-Carmitchel

WEST HOLLYWOOD — At a March 29 political gathering in the heart of one of the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ+ communities, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s candidate took the stage to talk about transparency, technology and public safety. Oscar Martinez, Michael Geraghty and Dennis Feitosa are all running as candidates for office in the upcoming California primary and shared the stage with Arthur Schaper, a Field Director for SPLC-designated hate group MassResistance California.

The Hollywood Republican Assembly held the event in Plummer Park, West Hollywood. Long considered one of the epicenters of LGBT life, more than 40 percent of residents in West Hollywood identify as LGBTQ. At the event, the candidates shared space and listened alongside an overtly anti-LGBTQ activist.

Martinez emphasized that, as a candidate in a nonpartisan race, he has made a point of attending a wide range of events — including those where he may not agree with every speaker. “If I’m going to run for sheriff, I have to reach out to everybody,” he said.

At the event, Republican candidates shared space alongside more controversial figures within anti-LGBT spaces. Schaper said his group was positioned to “fight the entire LGBT agenda. And it’s an agenda. It’s a Stalinist agenda.”

Martinez spoke to the small crowd immediately after Schaper.

Arthur Schaper is an activist with a long record of anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy. A Field Director with the group MassResistance, Schaper has spent years campaigning against LGBTQ+ rights. Civil rights organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center have characterized Schaper and his group as an anti-LGBT hate organization. 

Schaper disputes the hate group designation. Schaper frames his views as rooted in “natural law,” rejects labels such as “far-right” and argues cultural acceptance of LGBTQ+ people has been imposed through institutions rather than developed organically. On numerous events, Schaper has claimed that homosexuality is a defect and calls for the removal of social acceptance. 

Though he focuses much of his work on public education, Schaper has called for a rejection of any pro-LGBT views in society. In his remarks at the event and a subsequent interview, Schaper described homosexuality and transgender identity as harmful and called for the removal of discussions of sexuality from public schools.

After Schaper spoke, he told Ten Four “you can go back 20 or years ago, parents would have been burning schools down.” He told Ten Four that MassResistance has been “LGBT perversion [as an] organization for over 30 years.” Schaper later said during the interview that “it’s a hyperbole,” and continued that people are “afraid of cancel culture.”

Schaper’s work with MassResistance is not limited to local politics. For years, Schaper and MassResistance have worked alongside anti-LGBT groups in Uganda and Senegal. Recently, lawmakers in both countries have considered bills which would increase jail time for homosexual acts. According to Reuters, MassResistance shared materials to mobilize support and “educational materials,” that have supported the efforts to pass those laws.

“I’m running to be the sheriff of all people,” said Martinez, a candidate in the 2026 race. “Whether you are a Democrat, Republican or independent, at the end of the day, we all have to live together.”

Martinez, a law enforcement officer and registered Republican, frames his campaign around three priorities: modernizing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, improving fiscal accountability and supporting deputy wellness.

_{Sheriff candidate Oscar Martinez addresses a March 29 Hollywood Republican Assembly crowd at Plummer Park in West Hollywood (Sean Beckner-Carmitchel)}

Martinez, when asked about Schaper’s remarks, sought to draw a clear distinction. “I have LGBT friends,” he said. “I don’t believe that LGBT people are evil. You have good people and bad people in every community.” Martinez added that he was not familiar with MassResistance prior to the event. “This is the first time I’ve heard of them,” Martinez said. “I don’t support any extremism, whether it’s from the right or the left.”

Speaking at the event, Schaper told the audience “no one is born gay. That is a lie from the pit of hell. It is a destruction. It is a trauma.” Martinez was just a few feet away from Schaper.

In Los Angeles County, where Democrats hold a significant voter registration advantage, candidates with Republican affiliations often face pressure to broaden their appeal. Martinez acknowledged that reality, while also defending his decision to remain a Republican. “If I switched parties right before running, people would see me as a hypocrite,” he said.

The current Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Luna was a registered Republican before he switched party affiliation in 2021; he won the race in 2022. Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, his predecessor, successfully won his race in 2018 after defeating Jim McDonnell. Villanueva had used both McDonnell and Luna’s Republican party affiliation as a talking point in his campaign against them. Villanueva switched party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in 2025.

“I believe in God,” he said. “I think the Democratic Party has gone a little too far in being anti-religious.”

“The sheriff’s department is the biggest in the world and one of the least technologically advanced,” he said. “We have a budget of billions of dollars, and yet no one really knows where that money is going.”

At the same time, Martinez said his personal beliefs — including his religious views — have shaped his political identity. “I believe in God,” he said. “I think the Democratic Party has gone a little too far in being anti-religious — maybe not atheist, but anti-establishment religion.”

Asked about reports that some attendees at similar gatherings have been linked to far-right extremist groups, Martinez said he was unaware of any such connections at the event and rejected extremism outright. “I don’t support any extremism, whether it’s from the right or the left,” he said. “I go to events to reach people. That’s what running for office is about.”

Flyers of the Hollywood Republican Assembly event show that Martinez was added after Schaper and Martinez had already been advertised for the event.

Schaper rejects the label of “far right.” He argues that “you can’t put truth on a political spectrum,” he said. “This isn’t left or right. This is about the laws of nature.” During an interview at the rally when asked about those labels, Schaper claimed labels that he is an extremist or far-right were “a smear.”

Numerous activists said they’ve been harassed by Schaper or his group. Daisy Gardner, a public education advocate who often focuses on LGBT student rights, told Ten Four that “any parent who has watched far right agitators descend on their school district to start culture wars knows Arthur.” Gardner pointed to Schaper’s presence at a Redlands Unified School District meeting, where Schaper worked alongside Candy Olson. Olson has been embroiled in controversy as the district has worked to ban transgender students from participating in sports, and was caught liking explicitly neo-Nazi social media content.

A screenshot sent to Ten Four included a call for protests of documentary photographer Kelly Stuart. The email screenshot included her personal address, saying Stuart “deserves to be shamed, and she deserves to be exposed.” “Let’s try to minize [sic] our paper trail, if you know what I mean. We don’t want her to find out how you got the information about where she lives, for example.”

A personal blog run by Schaper includes numerous negative articles about journalists and pro-LGBT activists. At least one article includes the author of this piece.

Vincent Medina, a journalist working for the Norwalk Patriot, was confronted by Schaper and several other anti-LGBT activists at a 2023 Norwalk-La Mirada schoolboard meeting, and followed for several blocks. An article in the Norwalk Patriot referred to Schaper’s group as a hate group. The video labels Medina as a “hack reporter,” and brags that MassResistance “confronted this hateful reporter,” and “chased him off.”

While filming, several people shouted at Medina while he was leaving the meeting. Schaper’s video of the event included Medina’s cell phone number in the description. It also included the emails of Medina as well as other employees with a call to “contact the Norwalk Patriot,” in order to “tell them to retract their hateful defamation…”

Schaper also stated that his presence doesn’t reflect on the candidates. “If someone is in the audience, I don’t control that. Should I call you extreme for talking to me?”

Schaper argued that discussions of sexuality should be removed from public education, particularly for younger students, and characterized transgender identity and same-sex relationships as harmful. He cited studies he said support those claims, though his views are at odds with mainstream medical and psychological consensus.

“The founding fathers didn’t agree on everything,” Martinez told Ten Four. “They had to compromise. If we don’t compromise, we’re not going to survive as a country.”

Schaper isn’t the only person who has participated in Hollywood Republican Assembly events associated with controversy. Belissa Cohen, a self-identified “TERF,” posed for a photo with the group in October of last year. Also in the picture was Paul Onaga, who shoved a city worker at Tinhorn Flats Saloon during a series of protests after the city of Burbank attempted to shut the bar down after it refused to comply with COVID-19 restrictions in 2020.

Michael Geraghty and Dennis Feitosa attended and spoke at the event but did not respond to requests for comment regarding their presence at the event.

At the event that day were also several activists involved in either anti-mask or anti-immigrant protests. Elsa Aldeguer was there, and in the past confirmed that she organized events in Sunland-Tujunga in 2020. 

Jairo Tomico is the founder of the Hollywood Republican Assembly, according to an interview with VoyageLA. Tomico was an organizer for a series of protests outside of Koreatown’s Wi Spa, which turned into violent eruptions between pro and anti-LGBT sides after a viral video made rounds on social media. A pro-LGBT activist was stabbed at one of the conflicting protests, and several journalists were followed, harassed or attacked.

At those events, violent fights erupted several times after pro-Trump demonstrators crossed into counter-demonstrator areas. Members of groups like the sovereign citizen movement, IIIers, and the Proud Boys attended and were involved in violence. Aldeguer’s social media has a bevy of photos of her alongside members of the Proud Boys (occasionally wearing black and gold, their official colors) and she has been billed as a speaker at events alongside Proud Boys figures like Tusitala “Tiny” Toese.

As Martinez shook hands and spoke about transparency and public safety, Schaper cast his activism as part of a broader cultural battle. The juxtaposition highlighted what could be a central challenge for candidates in Los Angeles County: appealing to a broad electorate while navigating the influence — and fallout — of more polarizing voices within their political orbit.