Patrick Johnston in his Intolerant shirt.
The back of the shirt reads: Homosexuality is
a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder.
Dr. Patrick Johnston, a forced-birther who is founder of Personhood Ohio, wants to keep his
cough-cough "pro-life" operation alive by getting supporters to buy "an assault rifle” and “some high capacity magazines and a ton of ammo.” The progressive Ohio blog Plunderbund
notes that Johnston is offering for sale two Chinese SKS rifles and a MAK 90, all of them semi-automatic rifles that fire the same caliber ammunition. Johnston is auctioning 2,550 rounds of ammo along with the rifles, he wrote in an email over the weekend.
As in other states, the personhood amendment his group backs would confer citizenship rights on fertilized eggs, thereby outlawing abortion.
Johnston is a general practice physician, writes anti-gay and lesbian rants, home-schools his eight children, has his own hate-radio show, and ran unsuccessfully for Ohio's 94th state legislative district in 2007 on a platform that included "making Ohio the first state in the Union to defy Roe v. Wade with a statewide abortion ban.” He has been linked with some of the most extremist forced-birther groups.
Although he has disavowed connections to the Army of God, which supports assassinations of abortion providers, the lie is put to that by the fact that some of Johnston's writing remains cached on the organization's website, including this bit in which he argues semantics with another person who also thinks killing abortion providers is proper:
If someone is about to kill you with a gun, and I shoot him first to save your life, I have not committed "murder" or an act of "justice", but rather, justifiable homicide. My motive was not malicious, but compassionate. The fetus, though smaller and weaker, is just as worthy of the right to life as you and therefore, with the same defensive motive and without blame in the sight of God, the same force may be used against his/her assailant in order to defend them.
Another example of his loonery dug out by reporter Wendy Norris in 2008 found Johnston
arguing in CAPS LOCK mode with Ron McRae, a conservative opposed to abortion who nevertheless opposed the 1994 assassination of Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard by Paul Hill:
McRae: Paul Hill did God no service when he murdered Dr. Britton and his 74 year friend. The life of Christ is never manifest to the world by a Christian killing a lost sinner, regardless of how depraved.
Johnston: YOU WOULD NEVER SAY THIS TO CONDEMN ONE WHO USED LETHAL DEFENSIVE FORCE TO STOP AN ASSAILLANT [sic] FROM KILLING ALREADY-BORN PEOPLE. WHY THIS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE PREBORN?
This is the kind of talk that gives abortion providers like Dr. Warren Hern good reason to
wear bullet-resistant armor and not sit by windows with the drapes open.
From that perspective, maybe it's a good thing that Johnston is selling his rifles.