“I will not attend a forum that is being sponsored by an organization that lobbies for gun control, opposes the Keystone XL pipeline, seeks to eliminate coal production and supports partial birth abortion,” Clark Stith said in a release. “I am Republican through and through. I ride for the brand.”

Stith cited the League’s support of carbon cap and trade legislation, which he said “would have had devastating effects on Wyoming’s coal industry.”

The league’s state president laughed when told that Stith had branded the Wyoming chapter a hotbed of anti-coal sentiment and liberalism.

Williamson said she’s sorry he won’t attend based on incorrect information. She called his statements an “oversimplification” of the national league’s research findings on those issues.

“We’re not silly enough to think anybody will stop coal from being mined or oil from being produced,” Wyoming League of Women Voters President Amy Williamson, of Laramie, said Monday.

“Neither National nor State has a notion about doing anything about Wyoming coal,” Williamson said.

The national league has, however, favored “more effective controls” on carbon emissions and the oil industry’s practices, such as abandoning orphan wells.

Williamson said the national League of Women Voters website does have research papers on the very complex issues raised by Stith, but those positions were taken by the national organization, and taken after extensive study.

“I don’t know that we support partial birth abortion,” Williamson said, noting the organization does support a woman’s right to choose, access to contraception by women of all social and economic classes and the right of a woman to make health care choices with her doctor.

“We certainly don’t advocate late-term abortion, I don’t think anyone does except as a last resort,” she said.

Stith has a different interpretation.

“The League of Women Voters lobbied for gun control and opposed both welfare reform and the Partial Birth Abortion Act,” Stith said in the release. “The League of Women Voters is more liberal than the Democratic Party.”

Stith cited his own voter registration activities in Sweetwater County, which he said now has a Republican majority “after having been majority Democrat for a century. I will not throw that away to be on stage for a night.”

The league explains its activities online.

“We are nonpartisan and never either support or oppose political parties or individual candidates,” the league’s website states. “We do research issues and come to consensus on our position, for which we then advocate actively. We encourage informed participation in the political process by all citizens.”

Stith is running in the Aug. 19 state primary against Ed Buchanan, Pete Illoway and Ed Murray.