#651: Bob Enyart

We’ll give Peter Enns a pass because he is a beacon on half-sanity in a world of Taliban fervor and because Ken Ham is scared shitless of him, though despite the breathtaking inanity of some of Enns’s rants (count the fallacies!).

Bob Enyart has fewer redeeming qualities. Enyart is an absolutely inane and insane fundie talk radio host, author, and pastor and a self-proclaimed “right-wing religious fanatic”. He is, perhaps, particularly well known for his views on homosexuality and abortion (whom among these aren’t), for picketing the homes of doctors performing abortions, and for reading the obituaries of AIDS victims on the air calling the deceased people “sodomites”. He has also led residential protests against executives of a company that provided construction services for Planned Parenthood offices, and is a proponent of the corporal punishment of children, saying that their “hearts are lifted” by spanking (he was himself convicted for misdemeanor child abuse in1994 after beating his girlfriend's child with a belt so hard that the beating broke the skin). Yes, Enyart is that kind of person, if “person” is the right kind of word. He has also been convicted of criminal trespass following a protest at Focus on the Family afrer James Dobson endorsed McCain for president.

Of course, Enyart is also a hardcore creationist. One Will Duffy has been all over the Internet lauding Bob’s acumen: “[E]very evolutionist that I spoke to who was at the debate between Bob Enyart and Reasons to Believe willfully admitted that their side (evolution) lost,” and “Walt Brown and Bob Enyart are the greatest scientists of the day” (Evidence). Why isn’t every scientific question solved that way, by a debate? Of course, it turns out that Duffy is Bob’s producer. Duffy doesn’t say that, of course, but when has small acts of dishonesty ever stopped a creationist (perhaps other than Todd Wood)?

Diagnosis: Apparently absolutely devoid of any redeemable personality traits or positive human characteristic; yet this zealous bag of bigotry and denialism may nevertheless actually enjoy some listeners. Exasperating.