William Thomas, popularizer of paranoid chemtrail conspiracy theories, is apparently Canadian. Theresa Thombs, on the other hand, is not only American, but a representative for a very familiar, very American type of denialism. Thombs was a 2014 candidate for the Texas state board of education, whose campaign was largely based on warning people that the then-current board was “using your tax dollars to brainwash our children into socialist issues and ideas.” Among those socialist ideas were, unsurprisingly, the theory of evolution, and Thombs firmly denounced “people from socialist higher education” who support the teaching of evolution. “We know we didn’t come from monkeys!” exclaimed Thombs. She later said that people who criticized her attack on evolution at a school board candidate forum are actually trying to take away the right of Christians to speak freely and run for public office, because there is no difference between criticism and persecution when the criticism is directed at her.
Thombs considers herself an “international evangelist” who was in the running to fight “adgendas and ideoligies” (yes, that’s her spelling – she also asserted that parents are “criticle,” and that she’s an “advicate” and “expereinced”) and to defeat “Devil worshipers”. Her “Mission and Issues” statement also described her goal to “stem the tide of our best and brightest teachers leaving the classroom to pursue other carriers, because they can no longer live with the policies and mandates they no are harmful to their students.” We are not convinced her idiosyncratic spelling would actually count against her in a Texas schoolboard election.
On other issues, Thombs emphasized the importance of asserting “straight pride” to stop “political correctness.” To clarify her position she did say that she is “not bigoted or hateful” and that she in particular didn’t hate gay people, and then she compared gay people to murderers.
Diagnosis: Colorful village idiot, mostly. Thombs didn’t win a seat this time around, but it is worth pointing out that she probably didn’t lose because of her views as much as her tone.
The old "I'm not a bigot, but here is my bigotry on parade" style of nutter.
ReplyDeleteConsider the words, even today of the most vehement believers, who make threats of hellfire and even worse by their own hands against others.
Consider all the histories of religions that have been spread by compulsion, torture and the sword, as recorded in history and the books of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and others.
Consider the bones of the history they have wrought for themselves on fields of blood, compelled by fantasy horrors in their crazed desires...
Then read this ancient wisdom preceding that history, wisdom which all these acts delivered of faith have corrupted:
“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate”
Socrates - 469 BC - 399 BC