https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7983491075086324714#allposts
This is an 18-minute clip from the Rachel Maddow Show. It starts with Rachel's wrap-up of the forum she had moderated the night before, where she interviewed the three Democratic nominees (Clinton, Sanders, and O'Malley).
But at about 6 minutes in, she turns to a discussion of the forum attended by Republican candidates Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee, the National Religious Liberties Conference, held in Des Moines, Iowa, on November 6 and 7, hosted by a lunatic fire-and-brimstone pastor named Kevin Swanson. The topic: should homosexuals be executed (yes, that's right, killed) by the government? Lovely stuff.
The reverend man of God says that if his son or daughter invited him to their gay wedding, he would dress in sackcloth and ashes at the entrance to the church and sit surrounded by cow manure, which he would smear all over his body.
"It's not a gay time. These are the people with the sores, the gaping sores, the sores that are pussy and gross, and people are coming in and carving happy faces on the sores. That's not a nice thing to do. Don't you dare carve happy faces on open, pussy sores. Don't you ever do that. Don't you ever do that. I tell you don't do it."
Well, all right, then.
"America needs to hear the message: We are messed up."
Maddow responds, "Oh, yeah, we are." (She's gay, of course.)
Here is an article (lightly edited, grammar and punctuation corrections) entitled "4 Unbelievable Things Said at the National Religious Liberties Conference," by Robin Marty, at a site entitled Care2:
What would our nation be like if there was no more separation of church and state? If we replaced the Constitution with the Ten Commandments? These are the sort of questions that get asked at the National Religious Liberties Conference, a gathering of far right, theocratic political voters and operatives, all of whom want a government where we are actually one nation under God, and God is the Old Testament, vengeful type.
For a number of current GOP candidates for president, this isn’t an idea that fills them with terror. Instead, it’s the perfect pool to try to gain more support for their own presidential bids. Former Governor Mike Huckabee, current Governor Bobby Jindal, and Sen. Ted Cruz all came to Iowa to court the theocratic vote, hoping their backing might push their campaign further in the quest to rule the White House.
So what do theocrats talk about when they meet? Here are four jaw-dropping statements made at the National Religious Liberties Conference, and one idea that shockingly makes a lot of sense.
1) Gays should be put to death. Are there still people in the United States who honestly believe being homosexual should be a death sentence? So it seems, based on some of the literature being passed out at the event. “At the conference, where [Phillip Kayser] is giving two speeches on how local officials and others can defy the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, Kayser distributed the very pamphlet calling for the death penalty for gay people that caused a stir back when he endorsed Paul,” reports Right Wing Watch, who did extensive coverage of the weekend. “In the pamphlet, ‘Is The Death Penalty Just?,’ Kayser unsurprisingly concludes that the death penalty is in fact just, and lists homosexuality among the offenses deserving of capital punishment. Ironically for a ‘religious liberties’ summit, he also claims that the government should treat ‘breaking the Sabbath,’ ‘blasphemy and cursing God publicly,’ ‘publicly sacrificing to other gods’ and ‘apostasy’ as death penalty crimes as well.”
2) Anyone who doesn’t pray every morning is unfit for the presidency. For the far right theocratic wing, there really is a religious litmus test, and Sen. Ted Cruz is ready to prove his chops. “[A]ny president who doesn’t begin every day on his knees isn’t fit to be commander-in-chief of this nation,” Cruz told his audience. If there was any doubt that Cruz is a true believer who really, really wants this group of voters’ support, the fact that he not only showed up himself, but sent his father there to speak as well, should make his agenda clear. His father, who is a pastor, called his son the senator "the man of the hour.”
3) God trumps the constitution. Or at least, so say the potential presidents. According to Gov. Bobby Jindal, as long as a belief is a religious one, no one in the government should be able to place any sort of limit on what that religious person chooses to do. “No earthly court can change the definition of marriage, no federal government, no ACLU should be able to take away our religious liberty rights,” Jindal said to applause, according to Radio Iowa. “We were given those by God almighty.”
4) Vampires. They are a thing. If the rest of this seems pretty extreme, well, take a look at the pastor putting on the event. Kevin Swanson, the weekend host, gave a riveting speech that bemoaned the legal victories of equality for gay people, trans people and all of “secular” America, and said that the continuing trend would lead to even more evil entities. “The culture is becoming more and more radical,” Swanson said, according to Jezebel, and this radicalization is leading to “total chaos. Witchcraft is more and more popular, especially with the youth. It’s an adventure. Drunkenness is a disease. Homosexuality is an orientation. Cannibalism, vampirism is increasingly acceptable.”
Despite all of this fear-mongering, however, the GOP candidates did make one point that was actually quite rational. Regardless of what you think of the state of the country, and whether you believe a president needs to do God’s work or not, putting someone with no political experience into the highest political position available is asking for disaster.
“I’ve never had a job in Washington, so don’t blame me for the failures of Washington,” said Mike Huckabee, according to the Washington Post. “But I do believe that it’s important to have somebody who can articulate our vision and message, somebody who has had the experience of working a political climate that is extraordinarily hostile.” He later told reporters, “Is the presidency an entry-level job? If it is, then elect whoever you want. I realize a lot of people say, ‘We don’t want experience!’ OK, fine. But you won’t even hire someone to mow your lawn that’s never started a lawnmower.”
Even the theocratic wing of the party can be right occasionally.
0 comments:
Post a Comment