"Kill The Gays" OK with Cruz, Jindal and Huckabee
November 10, 2015 11:33 AM   Subscribe

The "National Religious Liberties Conference", sponsored by radical evangelical pastor Kevin Swanson, with featured speaker Phillip Kayser, was primarily focused on how homosexuality was destroying god-fearing people everywhere, and how gays should be executed if they don't repent and stop being so gay. Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal cuddled up with Mr. Swanson in their quest to outcrazy the other candidates, which is a difficult task, let's be honest. Rachel Maddow (skip to minute 6:00) is the first (and so far, only) national media journalist to cover the story and show footage of the event.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet (51 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I dislike these people and wish them great ills.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:34 AM on November 10, 2015 [13 favorites]


Rachel Maddow (skip to minute 6:00) is the first (and so far, only) national media journalist to cover the story

It's a hard story to fit into the phony "both sides do it!" narrative.
posted by Gelatin at 12:30 PM on November 10, 2015 [32 favorites]


(Related to the above, while it's clear that Bernie Sanders has been successfully pulling H. Clinton to the left during the primary -- and good on him for doing so -- it's been fascinating to see the so-called "liberal media" unabashedly equating someone who's basically an FDR Democrat -- Sanders, to be clear here -- with the pack of Republicans trying to outdo each other in showing their radical right bona fides.)
posted by Gelatin at 12:32 PM on November 10, 2015 [14 favorites]


Swanson would spread cow manure all over his body at a wedding? Who does he think he is, GG Allin?
posted by fogovonslack at 12:33 PM on November 10, 2015 [20 favorites]


Now working on the betting pool for which day either Swanson or Kayser are discovered to be a) patronizing gay prostitutes; b) engaged in an extramarital affair; c) engaged in child rape or child porn; or d) engaged in physical violence against their spouses or children.
This kind of hateful fervency only exists in the presence of towering personal hypocrisy.
To these people "Religious Liberty" means "The liberty for white male self-declared Christians to impose our sexual hangups or misogyny on others."
posted by BigLankyBastard at 12:37 PM on November 10, 2015 [39 favorites]


> Related to the above, while it's clear that Bernie Sanders has been successfully pulling H. Clinton to the left during the primary -- and good on him for doing so -- it's been fascinating to see the so-called "liberal media" unabashedly equating someone who's basically an FDR Democrat -- Sanders, to be clear here -- with the pack of Republicans trying to outdo each other in showing their radical right bona fides.

the so-called liberal media is in fact just that: liberal. I mean, specifically liberal; they're supporters of the position that the best system of governance is the one that best liberates the power of capital as exerted through the mediation of unregulated markets in labor, land, and commodities. Liberalism and socialism, even liberalism and Sanders' moderate social-welfare-statism, are directly opposed ideologies. The mass media, as a result of their material circumstances — as a result of the place their money comes from — are devoted to defining market-oriented liberalism as the mainstream and deviations from market-oriented liberalism (socialism and welfare-statism on the left, fascism on the right) as equivalently crazy.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:40 PM on November 10, 2015 [26 favorites]


You guys are behind. This batshit insane fucker is up to killing kids to stop them from being exposed to Harry Potter and a gay Dumbledore. That was my "surely this" moment but nope. You can throw kids off a fucking bridge with a millstone around their necks and the right will endorse you, hug you, cheer you fucking on.

America was a great experiment folks but the last one out please remember to lock the gate so the animals can't get out.
posted by Talez at 12:45 PM on November 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


Talez, he was talking about killing the adults not the kids. Doesn't make him any less insane tho.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 12:53 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh? My fault he was a tad ambiguous. But yes, the guy is off the fucking deep end here.
posted by Talez at 12:54 PM on November 10, 2015


I dislike these people and wish them great ills.

Yeah, me too but partially because that vid won't allow me to skip ahead to the 6:00 mark.
posted by hal9k at 1:08 PM on November 10, 2015


From what Rachel said, it sounded like they want the government to do this.
Wouldn't that just create another vast bureaucracy? The Republicans??
Or would they want to privatize it?
posted by MtDewd at 1:24 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


That is not a nice thing to do! Don’t you dare carve happy faces on open, pussy sores! Don’t you ever do that! Don’t you ever do that! I tell you don’t do it!

Wait a minute. I'm supposed to find other people to do my pussy-sore carving?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:29 PM on November 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


"An earlier version of this article misidentified the group that Swanson stated should drown themselves. This has been modified."

An honest mistake, Huffington Post.
posted by demiurge at 1:31 PM on November 10, 2015 [8 favorites]


I'm sure the free market could come up with some efficiencies. Perhaps some sort of semi-automated system that kills those people they don't like and blame for all their troubles? And they could make them work at camps until they weren't able to pull their weight anymore?
posted by Feyala at 1:33 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Perhaps some sort of semi-automated system that kills those people they don't like and blame for all their troubles?

Here you go.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:41 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


oh come on what the hell fun is it to execute a group you are scared and horrified by if you don't do it yourself?
posted by janey47 at 1:46 PM on November 10, 2015


Wouldn't that just create another vast bureaucracy?

They could call them death panels.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:46 PM on November 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


To be fair to the guy on the Harry-Potter-drowning stuff (and irrespective of whether his application of the scripture is correct), he's only quoting Christ: "If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."
posted by resurrexit at 1:46 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Please add openpussysores to the tags.

Holy hell. That is some straight up crazy shit. Religious extremists are frigging scary, no matter what the religion is. People like that are the open pussy sores of society.
posted by numaner at 1:49 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


People like that are the open pussy sores of society.

Okay people the coordinate-adjective comma is super-important to context here
posted by resurrexit at 1:51 PM on November 10, 2015 [15 favorites]


I really hope this becomes an issue. How can it not be?
posted by cell divide at 1:52 PM on November 10, 2015


Swanson would spread cow manure all over his body at a wedding? Who does he think he is, GG Allin?

That line struck me as well. I'm assuming that there's a reference to Malachi 2:3 somewhere in that crazy : "Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it." (KJV) Or as the New Living Translation puts it: "I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I will throw you on the manure pile."

But I've always just liked that passage—it's my own Ezekiel 25:17.

(I saw this last night and my first thought was that it would not shock me to learn that Swanson was no stranger to dick. My second thought was to wonder if Lindsay Graham received an invitation to attend.)
posted by octobersurprise at 1:52 PM on November 10, 2015


People like that are the open pussy sores of society.

Okay people the coordinate-adjective comma is super-important to context here


in my defense, English is not my first language ;-)
posted by numaner at 1:58 PM on November 10, 2015


“America needs to hear the message,” [Swanson] says. “We are messed up.”

No shit.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 1:59 PM on November 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


I really hope this becomes an issue. How can it not be?

Because we live in a country where conservatives are scared out of their minds that big government liberals are going to require that LGBT people are given equal protection under law. So it doesn't really matter whom the GOP candidates embrace or how terrible their positions are. As long as they are hating on the right people (i.e., the people that conservatives hate), that's all that matters.
posted by longdaysjourney at 2:01 PM on November 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


DON'T CARVE HAPPY FACES ON OPEN PUSS-Y SORES THAT'S NOT NICE I don't even know what this means but holy shit
posted by fungible at 2:10 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mod note: One comment deleted. The pussy sores joke has pretty much been made, let's leave it there?
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:35 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mod note: And a couple more deleted. Nothing is gained from lumping these idiots in with every other religious person on earth as all equally bad; that just destroys any chance of conversation here. Please don't.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:46 PM on November 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


DON'T CARVE HAPPY FACES ON OPEN PUSS-Y SORES THAT'S NOT NICE

It was at that point that I began getting a real Jack-Nicholson-as-the-Joker vibe from this guy.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:48 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


What I found terrifying is the people applauding. And the fact that three people who want access to the giant candy-like red button are playing to a crowd that is chanting for the blood of fellow citizens.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 3:13 PM on November 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


I feel that it's disingenuous to call this guy a religious anti-gay bigot. America has always had a lot of those. This guy is literally proposing a holocaust to thunderous applause.
posted by schmod at 3:20 PM on November 10, 2015 [29 favorites]


Their shirts. They're so...brown.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:27 PM on November 10, 2015 [5 favorites]




So - I mean... Well, he's not actually calling for a holocaust? I mean, look the guy is clearly a bigot and full of hate. He thinks some pretty despicable things. I haven't heard his "solution" (REPENT REPENT!) Is he calling for "repentance camps"? Locking all gay people up until they "confess and repent to jeebus"? It's like she want from the KILL ALL GAYS! To the "No, not really, but we need to repent..." and then to the candidates. I admit I got kinda tired and didn't feel like watching that last segment with the candidates themselves. So...

What, exactly, WAS he calling for? Because I sure as hell oppose it, but can we not maybe make it sound like he's literally calling for democide if he wasn't actually doing so? Again, I absolutely am against what he's for, any thing less than 100% equality and liberty for all people I oppose. So please don't think my call for trying to understand what he's actually calling for is somehow a defense of him. It's not.

More... I think it really is bad faith arguing from our side and it makes us look bad if we say "THIS GUY WANTS TO KILL ALL GAY PEOPLE!" and then we watch and find that's not what he said and how the FUCK are we supposed to be taken seriously if we can't speak what was actually said?

The problem, I think, is that so many liberals are ensconced in their particular caricature of the other side that if it sounds like the other side would say it, it's probably true. Sorta Poe's law-ish.

I grew up in this sorta bullshit and I remember my mom in the late 80s/early 90s talking about some sort of camp for gay people. You know - keep all us good white christians safe or whatever bullshit.

And I thought it was so ridiculous, then, and I was a bit of a homophobe (thank aforementioned jeebus that I realized later on I was pansexual and didn't end up smearing bullshit all overmyself out of self-loathing...)

The dude is clearly hiding some really nasty shit in that brain of his. But what exactly does he claim? Does he call for these "repentance camps"? Is he just calling on everyone to repent for america, so that, spiritually we'll turn the tide? I have a feeling it's more than that, considering it's a political event, not just a religious/spiritual event. Clearly he's pushing a political line. What, exactly, is that line?

I want to fight the known enemy and their stances, not set up straw enemies to burn, while the real enemy dodges my attacks (since I'm not even really attacking them). Can we do that? Can we have a coherent and reliable narrative that isn't just a hyperbolic reaction to the evil shit he said up front and try to parse it in order to deal with it and not be blamed for misinterpreting it? Because we on the left are so so so very good at that (misinterpreting based upon our preconceived notions of what the "other" thinks).
posted by symbioid at 4:01 PM on November 10, 2015


And I mean - the fact he said this shit with such fury is not even a fucking dog-whistle it's straight up hate, and it can easily feed the minds of individuals who have taken on some hero complex (a la Trump's "passionate fans") and lead to such things. And the more we let this rhetoric slide, the more it becomes common, so yes, we need to confront it and call it the hateful shit it is. Even if he ultimately didn't actually say "let's kill gay people". He's still dehumanizing them, and that message at the front that actually DID imply as such needs to be countered hard. Because there can be very real dangerous consequences for real flesh and blood humans, regardless of whether this is taken up as a political policy.
posted by symbioid at 4:06 PM on November 10, 2015


More... I think it really is bad faith arguing from our side and it makes us look bad if we say "THIS GUY WANTS TO KILL ALL GAY PEOPLE!"

Will no one rid me of these pesky gays?
posted by OverlappingElvis at 4:06 PM on November 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


Symbioid, normally I would be right there with you about the need to actually respond to the situation at hand rather than an imagined and outsized caricature, but in this case the guy really is as bad as they make him out to be. Go to minute 8 of that Maddow clip and listen to that bit, where he says that A) the bible says to kill the gays B) he supports that and is not ashamed of it and C) that he is not afraid to go to jail for obeying the bible. He is as clear as possible about what he believes and what he his goal is. The only ambiguity is exactly how much leeway time should be allowed for gays to repent before killing them, since if you kill them while they are in sin they would go to hell for eternity, which would be much worse than them simply being killed. The guy really is insane, and I don't think it makes sense to spend too much time trying to puzzle out the tactical and logistical details of his murderous rant.
posted by Balna Watya at 4:53 PM on November 10, 2015 [12 favorites]


Symboid, if you google Kevin Swanson, you'll find a ton of "kill the gays"' and in this speech, he said they should be killed, if they don't repent.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 4:55 PM on November 10, 2015


More... I think it really is bad faith arguing from our side and it makes us look bad if we say "THIS GUY WANTS TO KILL ALL GAY PEOPLE!" and then we watch and find that's not what he said and how the FUCK are we supposed to be taken seriously if we can't speak what was actually said?

He basically said "not yet" right? Gay people should totally be killed but not yet, because they should have some time to repent.

The implication is that it will eventually be time. So, yes, he wants to kill all gay people. Am I missing something?
posted by brundlefly at 4:58 PM on November 10, 2015 [8 favorites]


Yes, only some of the gays can be killed right away:

"Even after a society implemented Biblical law and made homosexuality a crime, execution would be rare," he explains, because "the civil government could not round them up." What a relief!

"Only those who were prosecuted by citizen-victims could be punished, and the punishment could take a number of forms, analogous to the flexibility in dealing with adultery — which ranged all the way from forgiveness, to divorce, to death," he continues. "Some people characterize this as a victimless crime since homosexuals cannot get married. But there are plenty of circumstances (homosexual rape, homosexual incest, homosexual death threats against politicians, etc.) where victims might be motivated to bring charges."

posted by neroli at 5:08 PM on November 10, 2015


Kevin Swanson is mentally ill.

This isn't a cynical joke. Look at the guy in that video. He needs help.
posted by crazylegs at 5:30 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


What I heard is that he meant, "Not yet," rather than an actual, "No." That doesn't make me feel any better.

He says, "Then they ask me, 'Yes, but, do you advocate for our civil leaders [execute 'homosexuals'] today?' And my answer is… No. 'But why?' Here's why. Because that's not such a big deal. We are not to fear those who can kill the body. 'Yea,' Jesus says, 'fear rather the — the one who can cast body and soul in hell forever.' The discussion concerning the capital punishment of homosexuals is nothing. Is not all that important when contrasted with hell fire forever. You say, 'Why wouldn't you call for it?' I say it's because we need some time… for homosexuals… to repent. That's why."

Then he really goes unhinged.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:55 PM on November 10, 2015


I am no longer frightened by fiction--fact is way scarier than any CGI fabrication.

So, supposed national political leaders offer tacit approval of the wholesale execution of fellow citizens, and it does not rate a headline?

THIS is my definition of scary.
posted by kinnakeet at 6:19 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Kevin Swanson is mentally ill.

If I saw him on the street, I would move away as quickly as possible and call for help, because I'd think he was off some very necessary medication.
posted by bluloo at 7:12 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Has somebody asked him how his plan would differ from Sharia Law?
posted by schmod at 7:46 PM on November 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


Kevin Swanson is mentally ill.

Let's not conflate mental illness with homophobia or any other form of bigotry?

He's a dangerous ideologue, who has a long lineage in the political tradition of the GOP of the last thirty or so years.

I think this is the third time I've linked this on Metafilter, but here you go:

The Religious Right and the 1992 GOP Convention

Swanson's a little more off-the-hook than some previous examples, but not by much, if at all. Maybe just with more panting - but that's down to the ubiquity of video technology now vs. then. They (i.e., Pat Robertson ran for the GOP presidential nomination, don't forget) were hoping AIDS would do the dirty work.

Robertson still thinks "the homosexuals" are trying to kill people with "AIDS rings."

Pat Buchanan in 1990 at the GOP national convention. In particular he said this.

Pat Buchanan still trumpets this:

Yet a militant leader of the homosexual rights movement could rise at that convention and exult: “Bill Clinton and Al Gore represent the most pro-lesbian and pro-gay ticket in history.” And so they do.

Swanson got applause for all that he said from lots of people there in the clip that Maddow showed. I'd imagine that at least one or two of those people have AR-15s-with-jungle-clipped-30-round-mags-a-plenty at home. That's probably not a paranoid fantasy.

So let's think about this accurate comment. So Kevin Swanson running on the GOP ticket in 2016? Probably not. Others punching other people's tickets based on this shit? Let's hope not.

I mean, Maddow is right to be like "holy shit, they're doubling down on this in 2015," but, well, yeah. They are.

In some ways, it's not surprising.

And I'm sad I think it's not surprising.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:08 PM on November 10, 2015 [14 favorites]


I would agree with the above wholeheartedly. Anyone who's been following this zone of madness for years if not decades would not find anything surprising in what this loon is saying other than for the unique baroqueness of his "carving happy faces on open sores" construct. In actuality, what he's saying isn't all that much removed from Pat Buchanan writing in 1983 that the "poor homosexuals" who had "declared war on nature" were now finding that "nature is exacting an awful retribution."
posted by blucevalo at 12:24 AM on November 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


Kevin Swanson and his followers are sure into the sex lives of other people. I never understood that. Why does my sex life or yours turn them on so much? Is there something written about that in the DSM? If not there should be.
posted by james33 at 3:25 AM on November 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you think about the hot demonic lure of gay sex all day long, you are most likely gay.
posted by benzenedream at 5:07 AM on November 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


Mod note: Comment deleted. As LM already indicated, this isn't the place for a general [Religion]Sux derail.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:24 AM on November 11, 2015


thank you, mandolin conspiracy

not gonna lie as someone who is seriously mentally ill all of that kind of talk/speculation was making me super uncomfortable. I feel like there's a lot of conflating "massive pro-murder anti-gay asshole and religious bigot" with mental illness which is blamed for enough already here. and that's kinda shitty. a lot of these kinds of things could easily be explained by extreme homophobia, hyper-religious bigotry, misogyny, racism, etc . those things aren't remotely restricted to mentally ill people.

just really needed to say that, won't be contributing to further derail, sorry. memail me if you want to discuss
posted by nogoodverybad at 6:23 AM on November 11, 2015 [8 favorites]


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