No, Walz didn’t claim it’s illegal to be gay in Nebraska. This clip is deceptively edited.

If Your Time is short

A viral clip from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s speech at a pro-LGBTQ+ event shows him saying, "When I was a kid growing up in Nebraska, being gay was illegal, still technically illegal."
Social media posts omitted that in his next sentence, he made clear he was referring to the laws of the past: "Look how much has changed since this organization was founded 40 years ago," Walz said.
Laws criminalizing homosexuality were repealed in Nebraska in 1977, when Walz was about 13.

See the sources for this fact-check

Since Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was tapped as the Democratic vice presidential pick, he has received national attention for his long-term support of the LGBTQ+ community. So it made sense when the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ advocacy group, asked him to headline its annual dinner.

But a deceptively edited clip from his speech that evening has gone viral.

"Tampon Tim falsely claims that being gay in Nebraska is ‘illegal,’" read the caption on an Instagram post shared by the conservative media outlet Townhall Media. (Walz’s conservative critics have used the moniker in a derogatory manner to refer to his advocacy for making free menstrual products available in schools.)

The post included a clip in which Walz said, "Think about this, when I was a kid growing up in Nebraska being gay was illegal, still technically illegal."

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

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A look at Walz’s full remarks at the Sept. 7 Human Rights Campaign event in Washington, D.C., however, shows Walz was not saying it is currently illegal to be gay in Nebraska.

His full statement:

"Think about this, when I was a kid growing up in Nebraska, being gay was illegal, still technically illegal. Look how much has changed since this organization was founded 40 years ago. Can you imagine, can you imagine going back to me, a high schooler in the early ’80s and saying, you know what, we’re going to kick down the barriers, we’re going to open doors, we’re going to pass laws that let you bring your authentic self, love who you want to love, and live the life that you want to live all by yourself with not interference from government."

When put in the full context, it is more clear that Walz’s phrase "still technically illegal" is restating his claim about the past rather than making a claim about current law.

A Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson told PolitiFact by email that "the Governor was clarifying his own delivery," and shared the prepared remarks with PolitiFact which read: "When I was a kid, growing up in Nebraska, being gay was still technically illegal there."

According to the University of Nebraska library, Nebraska had antisodomy laws on the books until 1977 when the Legislature passed a revised criminal code. Walz, born in 1964, would have been around 13 when law was repealed. The 2003 Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas nullified antisodomy laws nationally.

We rate the claim that Walz "falsely claims that being gay in Nebraska is ‘illegal’" False.