The Republican Party has a very strange relationship with history—and that’s putting it mildly. They are fond of a revisionist version of history in which facts are replaced with outright lies. Of course this is nothing new, but their propensity for bullsh*t has reached epic proportions as of late. Earlier this week, we watched in horror as Sean Spicer told an eye-rolling, nauseating, and Holocaust-denying tale about Hitler’s failure to use chemical weapons during World War II. And now, there’s more from North Carolina, where state Rep. Larry Pittman compared Hitler to Abraham Lincoln. Pittman is the primary sponsor of a bill to reinstate North Carolina’s ban on same-sex marriage.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Pittman was responding to commenters criticizing his bill, which would defy the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that declares such a ban unconstitutional. North Carolina’s Speaker of the House Tim Moore has assured that Pittman’s bill is dead and will not be receiving a hearing. However, it appears that Pittman was so worked up that he became delusional and told a bit of that old revisionist history when the exchange with commenters got heated.
A commenter reminded Pittman that the Supreme Court ruling settled the law on gay marriage and that the lawmaker should “get over it.”
Pittman’s response: “And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort (of) tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional.”
The Civil War was both unnecessary and unconstitutional? Good to know. And how exactly were enslaved peoples supposed to get free if it weren’t for that war and for Lincoln? Meh. According to Pittman, who cares? Of course, that wasn’t quite good enough for the commenters on his page.
Another commenter asked Pittman to explain why he believes the Civil War, which resulted in the end of slavery, was “unnecessary.” He did not respond to the question on the Facebook page.
For a good laugh, check out the entire exchange here.
The ultimate irony here is that in addition to his legislative duties, Pittman is also the pastor of Ridgecrest Presbyterian Church in Stanly County, North Carolina. What a shame for all of his parishioners. Who else thinks that Jesus would not be amused?