As we continue our review of what we heard from the far right in 2010, let’s call this sampling “potluck nuttery.” Click here, here, here, here and here for earlier posts about quotes from the far right this year.
“Yoga is demonic . . . It’s absolute paganism . . . Yoga and meditation and easternism is [sic] all opening to demonism . . . if you just sign up for a little yoga class, you’re signing up for a little demon class. That’s what you’re doing. And Satan doesn’t care if you stretch as long as you go to hell.”
— Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington, joining the ranks of prominent fundamentalist Christian leaders who have recently launched a puzzling attack on yoga, Religion Dispatches, October 27, 2010
“And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the 3rd and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story. And so the Devil said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal.’ And, uh, they kicked the French out, you know, with Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by, by one thing after another, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti on the other side is the Dominican Republican. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etcetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.”
— Far-right televangelist Pat Robertson, asserting that this year’s devastating earthquake — and other events — in Haiti was God’s punishment for the Haitian people’s alleged pact with Satan, ABC News, January 13, 2010
“I have noticed a disturbing trend in the awarding of these medals, which few others seem to have recognized. We have feminized the Medal of Honor. . . . When we think of heroism in battle, we used the think of our boys storming the beaches of Normandy under withering fire, climbing the cliffs of Pointe do Hoc while enemy soldiers fired straight down on them, and tossing grenades into pill boxes to take out gun emplacements. That kind of heroism has apparently become passe when it comes to awarding the Medal of Honor. We now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them. So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?”
— Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, commenting on the awarding of a Medal of Honor to Army Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, who put his life at risk to save his comrades in battle in Afghanistan, Rightly Concerned, AFA blog, November 16, 2010
“Do you know what the second-biggest demographic group that voted for Obama — obviously the blacks were the biggest demographic group. But do you all know what was the second-biggest? Unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have big brother government to be your provider.”
— Phyllis Schlafly, head of the far-right group Eagle Forum, speaking at a Republican fundraiser, TFN Insider, July 29, 2010. Available also on YouTube.
“Home games will have to be played in hell.”
— A sign used by fundamentalists protesting the “Demon” nickname and mascot of a Georgia high school. Protesters argue that the mascot’s name, which was adopted in World War II to honor a fighter squadron — the “Screamin’ Demons” — at a local airbase, encourages children to be evil, WMAZ-TV (Georgia), August 9, 2010
“Pregnant women are coming as tourists to have a baby and then returning to their native country, ‘with the nefarious purpose of turning them into little terrorists who will then come back to the U.S. and do us harm.’”
— State Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, speaking on a CNN program but then refusing to provide any evidence for her claim, Dallas Morning News, August 11, 2010
“I do not wear high heels.”
— Ken Buck, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee in Colorado, telling voters why he should win his primary election. The opponent in his primary (which he won) was a woman. Buck lost in the general election. New York Times, August 19, 2010
“He’s setting up a conspiracy theory of hidden truths showing this to be a Mormon Christian country.”
— Brannon Howse of Worldview Matters, accusing Fox News host Glenn Beck of trying to manipulate conservative Christians and draw them into Mormonism, Religion Dispatches, August 23, 2010
“[I] came to ask God to restore the country. Our freedom is lost. My freedoms are lost. To be able to preach anywhere we want, to have God in our schools, to drive any kind of car we want and if I want to drive a gas guzzler, I can, if I want to eat a lot of sugar and salt, and I shouldn’t be forced to buy medical care…To be able to burn the kind of light bulb I want, the list goes on.”
— Andrea Carrasco, an attendee at Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington D.C., when asked what had inspired her to fly to the capital from Colorado, Washington Post, September 1, 2010
“They are — they are doing that here in the United States. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.”
— Christine O’Donnell, Delaware’s Republican U.S. Senate nominee and new Tea Party darling, Talking Points Memo, September 16, 2010
“I am not a witch. I’m you.”
— Delaware Republican U.S. Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell, in a new television ad making her case to the state’s voters, Talking Points Memo, October 4, 2010
“[I] came to ask God to restore the country. Our freedom is lost. My freedoms are lost. To be able to preach anywhere we want, to have God in our schools, to drive any kind of car we want and if I want to drive a gas guzzler, I can, if I want to eat a lot of sugar and salt, and I shouldn’t be forced to buy medical care…To be able to burn the kind of light bulb I want, the list goes on.”
Yep. Mean old government. Once upon a time on the American frontier (Oh, if we could only go back there again!!!) a man could kill another man and no one would be the wiser because the nearest other human being was 100 miles away. Then the damn government starts bringing in policemen and before you know it there is some newfangled law that that says you can’t do that. These idiot politicians even gave it a politically correct name—-murder. You can’t say “kill” anymore. The liberals get really upset. They insist that we use murder instead.
Oh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When, oh when, oh when will this out of control government of ours quit taking away our basic American freedom to just go out and kill someone we don’t like? It’s just so unfair. All government ever does is take our freedoms away.