When You Care Enough To Hate The Disabled: E.W. Jackson's "Christianity" Puts A Serious Dent Into The GOP's Outreach

“It is the principle of sin, rebellion against God and His truth which has brought about birth defects and other destructive natural occurrences.”

It's difficult to take "Bishop" E.W. Jackson seriously. God knows we've tried before (OpEdNews, May 27) in warning Virginia and the rest of the country that if he was "the future of conservatism" (as Teabaggers put it), we were all in for very hard times. Perhaps the problem lies not with Jackson himself, but with the GOP's failure to see what they have in hand: a moralizing disaster in the making. From calling Planned Parenthood "worse for blacks than the KKK" to labeling the repeal of DADT a "disaster of epic proportions", the Republican candidate for Virginia's second-highest office makes the GOP's new "outreach" a parody of epic proportions.

Of course, Jackson sees himself as a savior. From the Washington Post:

     “I say the things that I say because I’m a Christian, not because I hate anybody, but because I have religious values that matter to me,” Jackson told reporters at a campaign stop in Fredericksburg. “Attacking me because I hold to those principles is attacking every church-going person, every family that’s living a traditional family life, everybody who believes that we all deserve the right to live. So I don’t have anything to rephrase or apologize for. I would just say people should not paint me as one-dimensional.”

He may, however, have a harder time defending his 2008 statement about birth defects and sin. It was enshrined in his tome Ten Comandments to an Extraordinary Life (see cover below). His one and only dimension seems to be casting aspersions of sin upon everyone, including the disabled. In his interpretation of Scripture, "God so hated the world that ..." He not only made everyone responsible for the sins of their fathers, but sent His "only Begotten Son" to suffer on earth for the world's biggest guilt trip.



Jackson's message of "outreach" is a wondrous negative of parity, a turn-off, again, of epic proportions. The Republican Party will be hard pressed to keep whatever moderates they have.

Then again, maybe there's a new rash of Christian Right-Wing-itis in the Republican Party: it just announced a new Tea Party Southern Baptist to spearhead evangelical outreach:

       The Republican National Committee (RNC) has just announced the hiring of a Tea Party Southern Baptist to strengthen its ties with the Evangelical community, Chad Connelly. Connelly, 49, is a motivational speaker and until his resignation to work for the RNC, was the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party....Connelly, who has been described by a local South Carolina paper as “a chronic liar,” and reportedly believes America is a Christian nation, there is no separation of church and state, and somehow only one person died on the Mayflower — “a sailor who cursed and mocked the Pilgrims’ efforts” — will be the RNC’s director of evangelical outreach.

And people like Cindy Jacobs, while not campaigning for public office, is still kept around as an evangelical mascot for the GOP (via Rick Perry). She certainly agrees with "Bishop" E.W. on the point of ancestral sin:

“If you are, perhaps you’re Mexican and you might have indigenous blood in you or Mayan blood, those who have Aztec blood in any way, you need to repent for the sin of animism before you begin to deal with this spirit.”

Righteously Arrogant Overreach

Jackson's self-assessment as the embodiment of faith, family values and righteous piety is not lost on the rest of America:

The (very conservative) Richmond Times-Dispatch:

     Every time the GOP loses an election, conservatives argue that the party’s mistake was not being conservative enough. If only Republicans tacked harder to the right, these advocates say, they would win more elections. Jackson will soon provide that theory with a perfect test case.

... and Conservative Black Chick:

     Any conservative, who thinks E.W. Jackson winning Virginia’s 2013 Republican Lieutenant Governor nomination is a good thing, needs to have his head examined. A former marine, lawyer and minister, Jackson has made incendiary remarks about gays, blacks and Democrats, which he said “I do not retract anything that I said.”

     This “firebrand” won’t help the Republican ticket of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for Governor and Mark Obenshain for Attorney General in a state that has become more purple than red and in which the race for governor remains rancorous and tight. Jackson referred to gays and lesbians as “sick” and “perverted” people and compared homosexuality to pedophilia. Defending traditional marriage is one thing encouraging hate is another.

Or as one comment put it:

Great news! The GOP were running a bit short on lying, fundamentalist, bat shit crazy, no-brain scumbags. Now they're back up to their quota. Well done.

Yes, it does seem that the righteously arrogant overreach of new evangelical Republicans will offend all but the Radically Religious Right. We can only hope that overreach keeps them out of office.