#725: David Grisham

David Grisham, a security guard at the nuclear-bomb facility Pantex, is the leader of the quasi-militaristic Christonazi organization Repent Amarillo, a branch of the Texas Taliban whose motto is “Army of God”, a rough translation of “Hizbollah”. The group advocates the “spiritual mapping” and targeting of specific local areas and venues in order to exorcise “demons” from those areas. Of course, they generally target minorities and vulnerable or small groups, something that has earned them the well-deserved epithet “hate group”. Among their more notable actions are their protests against a small, discrete swingers group, LGBT people, abortion clinics, Muslims, Buddhists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Universalists (who “teaches that everyone is going to heaven. This calls Christ a liar. You cannot be a Christian if you call Christ a liar,” according to Repent), Unitarians (“Pagan and witchcraft headquarters for Amarillo; pagan and witchcraft celebrations and rites are performed here”), and other groups deemed “not Christian”, as well as events such as gay pride events, “Earth worship events”, “Pro-abortion events” or places such as Planned Parenthood, breast cancer events such as “Race for the Cure” (they claim that they want more focus on the – thoroughly discredited – alleged link between abortion and breast cancer), opening days of public schools to reach out to students, spring break events, “Demonically based concerts”, Halloween events, and other “events that may arise that the ministry feels called to confront.” “As Christians, we cannot stand by and watch 67,000 of our neighbors walking through the gates of hell,” states the group, and accordingly views it as their mission to forcibly stopeveryone else from doing what Grisham doesn’t think he would like to do if he got the chance. As for the swingers case, Repent set out to destroy the club through harassment after discovering its existence. On New Years eve, they showed up in military fatigues and bullhorns, blaring Christian music at the swingers’ club building, thereafter stalking the members at every following visit to the club, took video of each member, obtained the swingers’ license plates, dug through their trash, and informed neighbors and coworkers of the activities. Their tactics have frequently involved attempting to get people associated with viewpoints they don’t like fired, but since their charges often include accusations of “witchcraft” their success rate is variable. Their attempt to burn the Quran was unsuccessful as well. Their execution of Santa Claus by a firing squad was more, uh, successful, but only given certain particular criteria for success.

Grisham has also tried to run for office on a dominionist platform, asserting that “so as far as I’m concerned there is no separation of church andstate.”

In fairness, quite a few of Amarillo’s inhabitants have grown tired of the group’s antics, and the groups evangelizing outreach campaigns seem to have backlashed.

Repent Amarillo is part of  RAVEN International, headed by one Troy Bohn. Bohn takes credit for the spiritual mapping (i.e. recognizing where the evil demons lay hidden in Amarillo), and it was Bohn and RAVEN leader Alex Hill who initiated the “Adopt-a-Block” program to organize efforts to remove the demons.

Diagnosis: The group and its members resemble the groups one reads about in horror stories from parts of Africa or Afghanistan. In short, there is really absolutely nothing to distinguish this group from the Taliban or Grisham from a zealous, fundie Taliban mullah. Or a raving madman, which he is.

#583: Ronald Conte jr.

Ronald L. Conte jr. is a Catholic lay theologian and fanatic. His website is rather fascinating, particularly because of the tension created by his fanaticism and his pretty ardent attempt to trying to stay in line with official Catholic dogma. He does, to a certain extent, accept the theory of Evolution, for instance, though he has to add some twists and take away a few bits that he doesn’t feel fit in with his fundamentalism – the result sounds a little more like Old Earth Creationism – and much of his website is devoted to debunking “private revelations” claims, which actually seems like a reasonable project (including a section “Tricks Used by False Private Revelations”)

But the madness is pretty ardent as well. Some may react to his breathtakingly detailed rules for sexual behavior within marriage (sex outside of marriage is of course not a topic, and he is opposed to contraception, suggesting instead “Natural Family Planning”), but Conte settles any question about his rationality with his prophecies. These include the claim that “Jesus will return in 2437 AD”, “nuclear attacks on New York in 2010 [which launches World War III] and Vatican City in 2013.” He predicts that the Holy Father will die in 2009 or 2010, to be replaced with two popes (both killed in the nuking of Rome in 2013). Hillary Clinton will be elected President and will become pro-life in 2009, Muslims will dominate the world from the 2020s to 2040s; then domination goes to Russia, to be followed by the dominance of Africa, India and China in the 23rd century. The tribulation will start on April 10, 2009, when each person on Earth will be presented with a vision explaining his or her sins.

As you may have noted some of these predictions are a couple of years old, but Conte seems unaffected by the fact that their accuracy has turned out to be, shall we say, disputable. He did, however, correctly predict the name of pope Benedict – which is remarkable, since he had as much as four or five names to choose from. His fans do, however, have to downplay the fact that he also predicted this pope to be black.

His latest prediction (from 2011) is that the Apocalypse will begin in 2012. Luckily he’s written an Apocalypse Survival Guide for Christians that you can buy from his website.

Diagnosis: At least he avoids the vagueness of Nostradamus; he can do that, since he seems to be entirely unaffected by his lack of accuracy. Overall Conte is an interesting fellow, and hopefully harmless, though there are concerned reports on the web about people actually taking him seriously.

#569: Warren Chisum

Warren Chisum is a former Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives hailing from the Panhandle, and member the Texas Conservative Coalition, a consortium of rightwing nut jobs.

He is nationally known for his opposition to same-sex marriages and adoptions, as well as to hate crimes legislation – he fought tooth and claw to keep the sodomy laws on the books (and to emphasize his vileness, see this). In a similar vein he has repeatedly tried to establish requirements that parents have to provide their signatures in order for their children to take part in sex education (which would, one suspects, kinda defeat the purpose of such education), and in 2008, he announced that he would introduce a bill to prolong the waiting time in Texas to finalize a divorce. All in the spirit of liberty, of course.

Chisum’s abysmal levels of delusional ignorance is very much in evidence in the memo from Georgia state representative Ben Bridges he delivered in February 2007 attacking “the evolution monopoly in the schools,” and claiming that in teaching evolution, schools are indoctrinating students in the beliefs of the ancient Jewish Pharisees sect. In more detail, the memo claimed that “Indisputable evidence – long hidden but now available to everyone – demonstrates conclusively that so-called 'secular evolution science' is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate 'creation scenario' of the Pharisee Religion ... This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia,” and for good measure Chisum’s memo directed readers to the Fair Education Foundation Inc., an organization claiming that the Earth is not rotating or orbiting the Sun. Of course, Chisum didn’t read what he advocated before he advocated it (what would you expect), but his response when he finally read it wasn’t much less loonsome.

His dominionist leanings are rather well-documented as well (also here). And to continue in the same vein: with one Charlie Howard he submitted the act “relating to voluntary student expression of religious viewpoints in public schools” discussed here (also here).

Chisum didn’t seek reelection in 2012, trying instead to get elected for a seat on the Texas Railroad Comission, which he failed.

Diagnosis: Blatant, shameless Liar for Jesus with strong dominionist leanings, who wouldn’t hesitate to use every fallacy in the book to get his way. Hopefully neutralized, to an extent, by now.

#565: Brian Cherry

Brian Cherry is a freelance writer for Breitbart (and other venues) who focuses, it seems, on the godlessness of Hollywood and to provide raging, incoherent criticism of leftism in TV series, movies and music (“Is Miley Cyrus the Next Leftist Trojan Horse Into Country Music?”), and knife-sharp analyses such as “Hollywood has a problem. They are currently losing the cultural popularity contest. A new Pew research poll shows that only 33% of Americans have a favorable view of entertainment industry. By way of comparison, Rasmussen reports that 48% of the public identify with the Tea Party movement […] The answer is simple. It’s all about values.”

In general his analyses are as informed as his views on evolution. For the latter, he has pointed out for instance that “[D]espite the fact that a number of reputable scientists support this theory with credible scientific evidence [right..], it didn’t stop proponents of evolution to immediately yell that this [the Ohio board of Education considering teaching Intelligent Design] is a breach of contemporary view of the second amendment that separates church and state,” before attempting to argue that evolution is a religion, too. Furthermore, the whole theory of evolution is built on fraud, and to back up that assertion Cherry tries (in addition to a couple of outright lies) to use the example of the Piltdown man, an argument even Answers in Genesis warn creationists about using.

Diagnosis: Classic Hovind. Complete lack of knowledge is often a hallmark of zealotry, and Cherry delivers aplenty. A rabid, raving, totally confused enemy of reality, though probably, in the end, not a particularly signficant one. 

#564: Jane Chastain

Honorable mention to bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman, Sr. for claiming, in 2003, to have “mastered the new art of Neruological Visual Profiling or N.V.P. The criminal or Predator puts off a certain ore about themselves. By using N.V.P Dog can predict the ’Danger’ before it happens.” (There is reason to think that “ore” is Dog’s version of what others call “aura”, although it makes just about as much sense in either case).

But Dog’s antics pale in comparison with Jane Chastain, who has a rather long story of ardent promotion of loon. Chastain is a former nationally-known sports announcer turned conservative political writer and commentator, in particular for WorldNetDaily. To give you a sense of Chastain’s connection to reality, one of her WND commentaries argued that “President Bush has done more than any president in history to advance gay rights.” One supposes that the comment should be understood in light of the fact that Chastain doesn’t seem to fancy the existence of domestic partnerships or gay marriage.

She has also peddled some of David Barton’s fake Founding Father quotes. The crazy is taken to dizzying levels of nonsense, however, when she later tried to defend her use of the quote. During the 2008 elections, Chastain favored McCain, and tried to convince her readers to vote McCain because Biblical law told us to and because God would otherwise destroy America.

She also thinks climate change is a conspiracy by the scientific community to “to scare us out of our hard-earned cash,” and has repeatedly pointed out that climate alarmist scientists are securing shitloads of money for their universities. She is also a staunch creationist, offering “There is no evidence (only theory) to prove that man came from the apes,” continuing with the always impressive gotcha “why are the apes still with us?” to clinch the matter.

Perhaps most famous, however, is her struggle with a deep moral dilemma described thusly: “[B]uying that box of cookies now presents a moral dilemma, as the Girl Scouts have become a training ground for the left-wing feminist agenda.” Or perhaps her (despite her general anti-abortion stance) suggestion that we should sterilize everyone who applies for guest-worker status to prevent them from having anchor babies. No wonder she struggles with some moral dilemmas.

Diagnosis: Although her devastating challenges to science should leave scientists working hard to revise their theories from the very foundations of those theories, we know that they really won’t since they are in a conspiracy to take your money. Fortunately Jane Chastain is there to reveal the nefarious points. Thank you, Jane.