Kevin Swanson is a far-right pastor and radio host who organized last weekend’s Iowa “National Religious Liberties Conference”, attended by Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee. He’s also a radical far-right voice who has repeatedly voiced over his career the “Biblical” belief that homosexuality should be met with the death penalty.
Right Wing Watch:
Swanson closed out the “liberty” conference with a fiery speech in which he proclaimed that although he does believe in the death penalty for gays, he wouldn't advocate for the government to execute gay people — or, at least, not yet.
The conditions aren't right, Swanson explained. The culture hasn't fully embraced his movement's version of Christianity, and therefore gay people don't know that homosexuality is a death penalty crime that they must renounce before it provokes divine destruction. He said he would recommend that the government wait to impose the death penalty until the culture shifts, giving gays time to repent.
Draconian measures to stop homosexuality are warranted, in Swanson’s view, not only because he believes the Bible mandates them, but also because he thinks that the gay threat is coming from all directions: country music, soccer, schools, day care and Girl Scout cookies.
Blast from the Past: On this date at Daily Kos in 2009—Coburn Disses Veterans
Throughout U.S. history, war veterans have been handy ornaments for many politicians to parade around with on national holidays, early on for the Fourth of July, later for Memorial Day, and later still for Armistice Day, which we now commemorate as Veterans Day. These politicos apparently think that they acquire some vicarious patriotism if they cuddle up to veterans on the dais two or three times a year.
But many of the same politicians have dishonored veterans during the rest of the year, routinely ignoring their needs. It doesn't matter whether these were amputees from the Civil War or the beleaguered Bonus Marchers of World War I, or the irradiated atomic test veterans of the Cold War, or the sufferers from post-traumatic stress disorder and the after-effects of Agents Orange in Vietnam, or those afflicted with Gulf War syndrome. With the exception of World War II, when Democrats invented the GI Bill in 1944, veterans have repeatedly gotten the shaft from a boatload of politicians who talk a good game when they've got red-white-and-blue bunting in the background and a national holiday audience to address but become forgetful when a vote for veterans' interests comes up in Congress.
We've heard plenty of flag-waving speeches from some of these hypocrites today. Smarm and treacle to a drumbeat.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin wraps up last night’s debate, plus the latest horse race news and polling, Armando & David Waldman continue to discuss events at Mizzou, and Joan McCarter offers debate analysis plus the latest and greatest in crazy Congressional crap.
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