I suspect Ian Bayne does not actually know who Rosa Parks was.
Please stop.
On Friday, GOP congressional candidate Ian Bayne went all in, comparing [Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson] to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
"In December 1955, Rosa Parks took a stand against an unjust societal persecution of black people, and in December 2013, Robertson took a stand against persecution of Christians," Bayne said in an email to supporters.
"What Parks did was courageous," he added. "What Mr. Robertson did was courageous too."
The "stand" Robertson took was to
compare homosexuality to bestiality, also lumping them in with "the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes" and so forth, which makes him the Rosa Parks of people who think gay Americans are going to hell. (Really, though, has their been a dearth of good conservative Christians willing to pipe up about that? Not seeing the pioneer status of this particular reality TV star, myself.) Oh, and Robertson also had said that black Americans had it Just Fine Thank You during the Jim Crow era, which also makes him the Rosa Parks of people who think Rosa Parks didn't have anything to complain about in the first place.
Bayne is running to challenge Democratic Rep. Bill Foster in Illinois' 11th District next year, presuming he makes it through the primary. That primary being the reason he's sending out emails about Duck Dynasty stars and what they can teach us about being like Rosa Parks, of course.
I'll say this again: Congress is already very full of crackpots and frothing nutcases, thank you. We don't need any more. I don't know what letter went out in Republican circles that encouraged yet another raft of these loons to come sailing down the ol' wingnut river, but we are full up already.