The Week in Quotes (May 13 – 19)

Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes.

Televangelist Jim Bakker, pitching the Missouri town in which he is building a Christian community equipped to survive the end of the world, and selling survival gear, such as packs of bottles that cost $150.

“The Bible says they’re going to eat their arms, the Bible says they’re going to eat their babies, then it says they’re going to eat their children. That’s what people do when they get hungry.”

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Cecile Richards, on whether she will go quietly into retirement after her service as president of Planned Parenthood for America.

“I’m not going to go off and start baking pies.”

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Bill Nye, on the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education.

“It’s ineffective. People whose sex education is abstinence often are called ‘parents.’”

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Right-wing pundit Steven Crowder, on the Boy Scouts acceptance of females.

“How is it not cultural appropriation for women to say, by the way, we’re now going into Boy Scouts? That’s a part of male culture and you’re appropriating it.’”

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TFN founder Cecile Richards, who recently left her post as head of Planned Parenthood, explaining how Texans can change politics in this state.

“Vote. That’s basically it. I mean, it’s incredible when you think about Texas, which is really interesting now. I was just back home and Houston, I think, is now the most diverse city in the country. Texas is now a majority-minority state, which is sort of an oxymoron. But in any case, we don’t vote. Forty-eight percent of voters turned out in the Presidential election in Texas. The national average was 60 percent. If people voted in Texas, it would be very different.”

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Former Texas state Rep. Glenn Maxey, the first openly gay member of the Texas Legislature, on the likelihood of stopping the use of the ‘gay panic defense’ in Texas courts.

“When the LGBT community is fighting against a right-wing Legislature hellbent on passing regressive legislation on everything from civil rights to using the bathroom, you really don’t have much bandwidth to push an issue such as this one. If an overwhelming majority of the Legislature is afraid of someone peeing, it’s pretty difficult for them to wrap their head around the issue that it shouldn’t be fine to murder someone who asks you out on a date.”

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Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, in the opening prayer Monday at the controversial opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. He has previously said that non-Christian religions lead people to hell.

“I believe, Father, I speak for every one of us when we say we thank you every day that you have given us a president who boldly stands on the right side of history, but more importantly, stands on the right side of you, oh God, when it comes to Israel.”

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Religion historian Neil Young, on the importance of Israel to evangelical Christians’ belief in the biblical prophecy of the return of Jesus Christ and the beginning of the Rapture – the end times.

“At this point, Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is the only concrete thing that his evangelical supporters can point to as part of fulfilling biblical prophecy to bring about the second coming of Christ.”

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Far-right leader David Lane of the American Renewal Project says the stakes are high for evangelicals in the 2018 elections.

“We are really clear about what we are doing. There is no hidden agenda about it. We’re trying to restore America to our Judeo-Christian heritage and re-establish a biblically-based culture in America.”

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U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-AL, on rising sea levels that most scientists consider to be an effect of climate change.

“Every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up.”