severely conservative

Virginia GOP Candidate Has Questionable Theories on Homosexuality, Planned Parenthood, and the KKK

Virginia’s already-grim gubernatorial race got a new injection of right-wing craziness to complement Ken Cuccinelli’s, as minister and lawyer E.W. Jackson won the nomination for lieutenant governor Saturday after a ten-hour voting process at the state Republican convention. Jackson, who has not held political office before (but unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2012) beat out more experienced candidates by appealing “as a grass-roots crusader for the Constitution and social conservatism,” the Washington Post reported. “I might even be more extreme than Ken,” Jackson said recently. The paper says the comment was meant “facetiously,” but now that Jackson’s the candidate it’s been easy to find examples of him being bombastic. Five of the most dramatic follow.

  • On Planned Parenthood and the Klu Klux Klan: “The Democrat Party has created an unholy alliance between certain so-called civil rights leaders and Planned Parenthood, which has killed unborn black babies by the tens of millions. Planned Parenthood has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.” [Politico]
  • On homosexuality and pedophilia: “I know their people say, well, it’s unfair to associate homosexuality with pedophilia or some of these other previsions. But I believe that there is a direction connection because what they really want is absolute sexual freedom.” [Goodasyou via Buzzfeed]
  • On President Barack Obama’s view of Israel: “Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities. He sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective.” [Jackson’s S.T.A.N.D. blog via The Hill]
  • On gay and lesbian people: “Their minds are perverted, they’re frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally and they see everything through the lens of homosexuality. When they talk about love they’re not talking about love, they’re talking about homosexual sex. So they can’t see clearly.” [Right Wing Watch via Buzzfeed]
  • On his own past statements about gay and lesbian people, after winning the nomination: “I think people always try to put that in the context of being hateful and it’s not. … It’s a particular worldview that every Christian for the most part who goes to church across this commonwealth shares: that marriage should be between one man and one woman. And anything else is an attempt to redefine an institution that really can’t be redefined. But I also like to let gay folks know that that same religious faith requires that you care about everybody, regardless. . . . It’s about religious principles, but never, ever about hatred or bigotry.” [The Washington Post]

Questionable Theories From Va.’s GOP Candidate