This is going to be a somewhat short diary, but I thought I'd post just in case you haven't seen the news yet. Charles (Chuck) Coleson--Watergate felon, viciously anti-gay zealot, and fundamentalist Christian theocrat--died today. He was eighty years old. His death was caused by complications after surgery following a brain hemorrhage.
From the Los Angeles Times article:
He was Richard Nixon's "hatchet man," the president's "evil genius," who by his own admission was "ruthless in getting things done" in the Watergate years, when the things that he and others in the White House were getting done would become a national disgrace and send Colson to prison.
And he was a born-again Christian, the founder of the world's largest prison ministry, an "unfailingly kind but tremendously courageous" intellectual leader who became the "William F. Buckley" of the evangelical movement.
As Wayne Besen noted on Facebook, Colson was "one of the few ex-cons who did more harm after he went to prison." From The New Civil Rights Movement:
Charles Wendell “Chuck” Colson, born October 16, 1931, who wrote dozens of books, was also the primary author of the 2009 ”Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” an anarchistic manifesto demanding signatories — more than 525,000 to date — break the law should they perceive the law not squaring with the Bible. The Declaration attacks same-sex marriage, abortion, laments both society’s decoupling of marriage from childbearing and its growing acceptance of infidelity.
While Colson was seen and the primary author of the Manhattan Declaration, National Organization For Marriage (NOM) founder Robert P. George, whom Colson routinely praised, was a co-author.
[...]
Colson repeatedly attacked same-sex marriage and homosexuality. He wrongly stated “homosexual behavior” is more “dangerous than smoking, it lowers the life expectancy dramatically.” Colson also falsely stated that legalizing same-sex marriage was “sanctioning behavior known to be dangerous.” And, again falsely, stated that gays and lesbians “don’t want marriage; they want their sexual choices affirmed as normal and moral.”
And as late as last year, despite years of research to the contrary, Colson was publicly advocating that homosexuality was both a choice and avoidable if parents properly raised their children. Colson pointed to the book “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality,” as the way to “learn more about what parents can do to lessen the chances their children will grow up homosexual.”
Focus on the Family
has this to say in the wake of his death:
America has lost a gentleman and statesman of the highest integrity and character. I’ve lost a dear friend and mentor who, most importantly, modeled for me how to stand for God’s Truth with Christ’s heart. Chuck was an endlessly selfless man, whose love for and ministry to those in prison made him one of the great modern-day lions of the faith.
Huh.
The New Civil Rights Movement notes that author Jeff Sharlet, who has written about the Religious Right, also responded on Twitter.
Chuck Colson was a cruel, vain, and arrogant man in all phases of his life, a dissembler & a hater to the end. RIP.