In both 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Tony Tinderholt, a member of the Texas House of Representatives and Jared Lee Loughner look-alike who hangs out with anti-immigrant militia groups and talks about arming Americans all along the U.S./Mexico border to stop Mexicans from taking “free stuff” and “thieving”. His solution to the immigration crisis is “people are going to die and that’s the only thing that is going to stop migrants from taking the lifeblood of our country.” Tinderholt has also told open-carry advocates in his district to call him immediately if the police even question them for wandering around with a firearm. Best of all was Tinderholt’s reaction to a Texas probate judge ruling that the state must comply with the Supreme Court’s rulings on same sex marriage… Tinderholt tried rallying against the judge for this, but in his effort online to do so, named the wrong case and the wrong judge. Making his crusade to protect the sanctity of marriage on Christian principles even more ridiculous and hypocritical is the fact that Tinderholt has been divorced four times, and is on his fifth marriage by the age of 44. When we last left him, he also was under an ethics investigation for “misplacing” $15,000 in campaign funds, something that is not shocking when you consider that back in 1999, one of his ex-wives and employees were embezzling money from a child care business he ran to buy crack cocaine (at least it was without Tinderholt’s knowledge).
As we reported in our last entry, Tinderholt barely survived a primary challenge from Andrew Piel, and the only opponent he had to face off against in the general election was Libertarian Jessica Pallett, who he crushed with 74% of the vote. Since being allowed to continue his legislative career into a second term, he has already shown no signs of chilling out, now directing his attention towards abortion. And like any Tinderholt effort, it’s extreme and insane. He sponsored HB 948, “The Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act”. HB 948 claims that fetuses have rights and each one should be considered “a living human child, from the moment of fertilization upon the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum.” Because of this, the fetus, from the moment egg and sperm meet in a fallopian tube, is to be “entitled to the same rights, powers, and privileges as are secured or granted by the laws of this state to any other human child.” Tinderholt followed up just that inflammatory idea with a series of quotes that take misogyny towards a level best described as completely insulting:
“Right now, it’s real easy. Right now, they don’t make it important to be personally responsible because they know that they have a backup of ‘oh, I can just go get an abortion.’ Now, we both know that consenting adults don’t always think smartly sometimes. But consenting adults need to also consider the repercussions of the sexual relationship that they’re gonna have, which is a child.”
Yes, those pesky wimmenfolk just don’t know anything about being personally responsible about sex, amirite, fellas? Especially the rape and incest victims who aren’t exempted by the bill Tinderholt just wrote, those non-smartly thinking consenting adults. (Please note those past two sentences are laced with all of the sarcasm I can muster.)
People did ask Tinderholt why he makes no exceptions for rape or incest, and this was his response:
“I’m a firm believer that God creates children in his own image, regardless of how that child is brought into the world, it’s created in his image, and how can someone want to destroy that? I don’t think that there should be any exceptions to murder, no matter what. So, if this child was out of the womb and it was a child that was born out of rape or incest, no one would be OK with killing a child. I look at it like that child is a child in the womb, just like it’s out.”
So unless a rapist were to father a child that looks non-human, Tinderholt feels everyone should be thrilled. Got it. Oh, and we’ll point out that while Tinderholt feels there should be no exceptions to murder, he’s still fine with the death penalty. Last we checked, executioners are an exception to murder, so there’s that.
Not long after making these statements in a place where anti-choice measures already have already led to a state with the worst maternity mortality rate in the developed world, Tony Tinderholt began receiving death threats, and was placed under the protection of the Texas Department of Public Safety. He will remain in office, presumably to continue pitching bills so extreme, they’re patently unconstitutional for the next year and a half, at least.