#1779: Fred Jackson

Fred Jackson is an evil man. He is the news director for the American Family Association, and the kind of guy who systematically blames violent incidents on liberal churches and the media, institutions that according to Jackson are deemphasizing the fear of God and the Bible. Jackson (and his co-host Teddy James at the radio show AFA Today) did for instance maintain that the 2012 Colorado movie theater shooting was a sign of God’s judgment for the failings of the public education system and liberal churches that affirm gays and lesbians. What gays and lesbians have to do with it should be obvious: Jackson is one of the Good guys, but doesn’t like gays, so gays must be Evil and thus in league with mass murderers. The boy scouts are apparently part ofthe Horde as well (in “open rebellion” against God, no less). And the forces of evil are backed by the courts; the SCOTUS gay marriage decision, for instance, led Jackson and Sandy Rios to declare that marriage, the institution God himself instituted in the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were playing around with the dinosaurs some 6000 years ago, is now dead in the US and that God will have his vengeance on us. Good thing that when people disagree with you or things don’t go the way you wanted them to go, you can always call upon (what they seem to primarily think of as) a big bully friend to beat up the offenders, and claim that some random typhon hitting innocent farmers in Nicarague is evidence that he is doing your bidding.

AFA Today has hosted prominent and well-respected guests like Jan Markell (who for instance agreed with Jackson’s assessment of the refugee crisis in Europe that it is proof that God has “taken down any hedge” of protection – from Muslims, of course – around the continent because of its abandonment of Israel), Jerry Newcombe and Jerry Boykin.

Of course, Jackson sometimes makes forays into political issues beyond marriage equiality as well, for instance when he claimed that demanding public trials for police officers (or, really, holding them accountable at all) “sounds a whole lot like lynching”, or when he agreed with a caller that red states should secede from the US.

Diagnosis: A horrid little man; delusional, mean and zealous.