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Madison — In the hours after the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, a Democratic state representative from Wisconsin questioned whether conservative Christianity enabled violence against gays.

That prompted one of his Republican colleagues on Tuesday to call him a "loon" and a "laughingstock" — and accuse the nation's first black president of engaging in racism and hating Christians.

"How many people have been driven to hate and act violently towards the lgbt community by 'conservative Christian' ideology?" Rep. Mandela Barnes (D-Milwaukee) wrote on Twitter on Sunday soon after the Orlando shooting.

Among a string of other tweets from Barnes on the issue was one that read: "So many terroristic enablers in churches, in Congress, and state houses. Whether by discriminatory policy or the love affair with guns."

Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) issued a statement Tuesday lashing out at Barnes, along with President Barack Obama.

"This guy, a sitting Wisconsin representative, is an absolute loon of a 'leader' doing everything he can to divide and conquer, politicizing a horrific event — the modus operandi of our own president," Kremer said in his statement. "The Orlando rampage was derived from pure evil and hate — something that Christians and Muslims both denounce.

"Our country has been torn apart by President Obama's divisive racism, hatred of Christianity and lambasting of the military and law enforcement. This terrible belief system has obviously crept into our own statehouse."

Kremer has led an effort for Wisconsin to adopt a law that would require transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms for the sex listed on their birth certificates. In a tweet Tuesday, Barnes told Kremer it must be hard "playing world police & bathroom police at the same time."

Barnes is giving up his Assembly seat to challenge state Sen. Lena Taylor of Milwaukee in the Aug. 9 Democratic primary.