#220: Gary Kreep

The aptly named Gary Kreep is one of the more notable elements of the birther movement. Kreep is the executive director of the United States Justice Foundation (it’s truly insane piece of wingnuttery), a California-based non-profit organization dedicated to undermining Obama’s presidency. He has been known to team up with Orly Taitz, which has not exactly been beneficial to his (already completely lunatic) cause.

He has also, apparently, sued the Department of Homeland Security for its targeting of conservatives (warning: this site, run by one Trevor Loudon, is an utterly insane conspiracy theory website).

More here.

Diagnosis: Rabid wingnut whose misguided fury has blinded him to anything remotely resembling reality. His impact is uncertain, and the birther movement appears to be on the decline now, but it may be worth keeping an eye on him.

#172: James Hartline

San Diego’s most famous wingnut, and one of the most thoroughly unhinged anti-gay activists out there (the competition is pretty fierce), James Hartline is the publisher of The James Hartline Report, which addresses issues involving homosexuality. A fine example is here, where Hartline urges his voters not to cast their votes for Mayoral Candidate Jerry Sanders because it violates the Bible, and because Sanders “will be bringing with him a new wave of moral compromise and radical homosexual ideology. This is the core problem in San Diego, which, for the last ten years has destroyed all sense of morality in America's once Finest City, and left the citizenry with an unfixable financial black hole.” The point was the Hartline found homosexuals among Sanders’s campaign sponsors (which are, by default, extremist promoters of the insidious homosexual agenda). By not treating gays as shit, Hartline claims, Sanders is disrespecting every Christian voter. He also claims that “both Jerry Sanders and Donna Frye are rabid supporters of the liberal, social experiment of the sexual revolution”, but I am unsure that Hartline has earned the right to use the adjective ‘rabid’ of other people. Here, by the way, is some context and a snapshot of ordinary San Diego lunatics.

He also blamed the 2007 forest fires on the gays (God’s punishment), or actually on the anti-christian California lawmakers who even considered legalizing gay marriage.
And last year, the torrential rains in Southern California were … well, you guessed it.

Particularly charming is his tendency to start sounding like an incoherent Old Testament prophet when his hysterical rants reach their climax. He is also oppsed to the “Nazi-style stem cell research”.

This entry could also serve to indict Phil Magnan, the director for Biblical Family Advocates, who joined forces with Hartline on at least this occasion, and who thought it was ‘sad’ that the Gay Men's Chorus of San Diego was allowed to sing the National Anthem at the San Diego Padres baseball stadium.

Diagnosis: Hartline’s Report is one long, hysterical, unhinged, garbled primal scream against sanity, reason and freedom, and the guy is totally insane. Impact unclear, but I doubt he convinces anyone not already positioned well beyond the reach of reason

#113: Wiley Drake

The amiable, lovable Wiley Drake is a Californian Southern Baptist minister and talk radio host, and a prominent member of the American Independent Party. In fact, he was their vice-presidential candidate in 2008 (with Alan Keyes - who will be covered later - rest assured, as the presidential candidate). He is most famous for calling for prayers for the deaths of those who disagree with him, including political opponents.

He was most famous for urging his followers to pray for the death of Obama ("Imprecatory Prayer is now our DUTY"). In fact, his obsession with imprecatory prayer is based on its success rate. God had already answered his call with the murder of George Tiller who, according to Drake, “was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler, […] so I am happy. I am glad that he is dead". Actully, Drake said he didn’t think the killer was pro-life – rather, the killer was planted by Obama to make anti-abortionists look bad.

Well, it wasn’t his first attempt at calling down the wrath and death mongering of God. The reason he wanted to take down Americans United for Separation of Church and State was primarily not because they defend the separation of church and state, but because they filed a complaint against him with the IRS for violating his church's tax exempt status. A fairly typical Jeebus and Christian™ cause for invoking the wrath of God, in other words.

Before running on Keyes’s ticket, Drake had endorsed Huckabee. Even Huckabee wasn’t particularly pleased about that.

Drake is a birfer. In fact, his main (official) argument against Obama is that he was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii and is thus an usurper.

Diagnosis: One of the most repugnant characters alive. Clinically insane, fascist piece of mindrot who needs serious medical attention. His influence is to some extent marginal, but he can’t be written off as harmless.

#93: Brad Dacus

President of the Pacific Justice Institute and common-style theocrat of the vocal and paranoid type. Dacus thinks that policies set up to secure the equal rights of gays and lesbians are (by default) discriminating against Christians (because it limits their ability to act out their bigotry, apparently) – and Dacus predictably uses completely overblown language to assert it.

Dacus actually thinks that stopping same-sex marriage in California is exactly like stopping Hitler and the Nazis.

He is also a big fan of David Barton.

Diagnosis: Paranoid, vocal wingnut and loon; impact uncertain – there are lots and lots of these people out there, and they’re all loons.

#18: Michael Bernard Beckwith

Beckwith is a New Thought minister and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City, California, a New Thought church with 8000 members. Beckwith was one of the featured teachers in The Secret movie (hence an automatic consideration for inclusion in our encyclopedia); teaches meditation and “scientific prayer”, speaks at conferences and seminars and is the author of numerous books. Beckwith is a prophet of the infamous Law of Attraction, a crackpot idea in pseudo-scientific dressing about how positive thinking metaphysically attracts success. When Beckwith says "There's enough for everyone. If you believe it, if you can see it, if you act from it, it will show up for you. That's the truth", it is not meant metaphorically. The same goes for "There are laws of the universe and if you practice them they will respond to you." No, Beckwith, that’s not how it works.

Beckwith’s main project is to combine the most fluffy ideas from the world’s religions with New Age thought – and then proceed to declare it “science”; the epitome of New Age flakiness, in other words.

It should be mentioned that Beckwith is a serious contributor to various charities and environmental issues; unfortunately his ridiculous metaphysical rantings might overall have more adverse consequences than his contributions to social issues have positive consequences.

Diagnosis: Professional snowflake with delusions of grandeur and a serious shortage of critical thinking skills; quite an impact, but it is unclear to what degree his metaphysical gibberish contributes to his influence.

#2: Howard Ahmanson

Our second loon is Howard Ahmanson.

Ahmanson is a financer of the Discovery Institute and several other fundamentalist causes, such as Proposition 8 in California. He is an extremely wealthy (multi-billionaire!) magnate whose political agenda is nicely captured in the following quotation: "My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives”.

Diagnosis: Complete loon, extremely influential and very, very dangerous.