#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.

#643: John Eidsmoe

John Eidsmoe is a legendary Alabama attorney and Christian reconstructionist (dominionist) who is on the record demanding a “full scale offensive” to take over the nation and impose Christianity by force of law (also here). He also has, as you may suspect from an Alabama dominionist, what could perhaps be characterized as a more “nuanced position” on slavery.

Eidsmoe is the proud possessor of, in addition to a J.D, a doctorate in “ministry from the Oral Roberts University” and in fact a variety of (unaccredited) degrees from other rather shady places trying to pass as educational institutions. Then again, Eidsmoe is severely mistrustful of education, and is on the recording dismissing accredited education as brainwashing since education introduce kids to reality and Eidsmoe disagrees with reality. Given his expertise on such matters it is little surprise that Eidsmoe was the legal advisor to Roy Moore during the latter’s 10 commandments statue debacle.

Eidsmoe’s rise to fame is primarily related to the fact that Michelle Bachmann was one of his students while she attended Coburn Law School at Oral Roberts University. Indeed, Bachmann describes Eidsmoe as “one of the professors who had a great influence on me” (she still has the audacity to criticize Obama for Obama’s connection to Jeremiah Wright, by the way), and Bachmann his research assistant on the 1987 book “Christianity and the Constitution”. That book argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy, which of course is in blatant contradiction with the facts, but being in contradiction with reality has never have never mattered for professional Liars for Jesus and is a necessary qualification for being, as Eidsmoe was, enlisted by the rabidly fundamentalist pseudo-science organization WallBuilders – which is how he came to be hired by Ohio’s Springboro School District for their summer course on the Constitution. One may wonder how Bachmann aligns herself with Eidsmoe’s opinion that “women must submit to their husband”, but come to think of it Bachmann has in fact said precisely that herself. Bachmann also seems to have got her theocratic sympathies from Eidsmoe.

No points for guessing Eidsmoe’s attitude toward zeh gays (they are destroying society by incurring the wrath of God, if you ever wondered). In Gays & Guns he writes that “one cannot help wondering why homosexuals would persist in a life-style that is in fact a ‘death-style’,” and urges the military to adopt reparative therapy as a means to change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian servicemembers. In said screed he uses phrases such as “considerable evidence indicates that,” but unfortunately seems to think that “considerable evidence” is just a nicer word for “the zealous bigotry I have decided to adopt.” The proposed measure is apparently needed since gays who join the military will molest children.

Eidsmoe has been considered too extreme and asked towithdraw as a speaker by Tea Party rally organizers. That should tell you something.

There’s a fairly comprehensive Eidsmoe resource here.

Diagnosis: A significant source of evil in the world. Should be approached with care and preferably not at all.

#639: Tim Dunkin

Nothing out of the ordinary about Tim Dunkin insofar as blathering insanity counts as “ordinary”, which the numbers of entries in our Encyclopedia is starting to suggest that it does. Dunkin writes for RenewAmerica and Conservative Underground, and among his schticks is – you guessed it – the malicious gay agenda. Indeed, Dunkin has joined the Scott Lively train, and taken it upon himself to warn America that not only is same-sex marriage not a right, but that homosexuality itself “is a lifestyle choice that lends itself to violence, degradation, disease, selfishness, and exploitation.” From this not particularly well-supported premise he concludes that gay rights must be “fought, defeated, and thrown back” along with “the rest of the broader revolutionary socialist agenda.” Homosexuality will destroy America also because homosexuality is associated with violence, pedophilia and abuse. But mostly because it is homosexuality and hence icky, on suspects.

It is curious that when pressed for arguments, he appeals to the same shit fluffpot woo-meister hippies generally use: “it’s unnatural”. Though he does, of course, not even get that one right.

Dunkin’s rants on evolution and environmentalism are likewise rather exasperatingly devoid of understanding of either (in Dunkin’s world evolution requires a magic transition from non-life to life; microevolution is well-supported – macroevolution is not and so on), and appallingly fond of strawmen, misrepresentations, and misapplying words he doesn’t understand. But that wasn’t much surprise, was it? (No, you get no link to his drivel; google "Dunkin" and "evolution".)

Diagnosis: Fundie bigot. Standard fare.

#630: Mark Downey

And just in case you thought you’d seen the worst of lunacy by now, we give you Mark Downey. Reverend Downey is the culprit behind the “Christian Identity” website Kinsman Redeemer Ministries, which is a good place to go to give up all hopes for humanity. Downey’s main tenet is that the so-called “Chosen People” of the Bible are – as opposed to what the Bible suggests – not the Jews, at least not today’s Jews, but rather the “Germanic, Celtic, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon” peoples. And thus you may get an impression of the direction in which Downey is headed. And indeed: “Adolf Hitler showed the world the mercy and loving kindness of Positive Christianity,” he says, but we failed to listen and were instead fooled by a Jewish conspiracy to view Hitler as evil. Yes, that’s the idea, and even among the most insane it will probably remain a minority view for some time. As for anti-semitism, Downey has revived most myths from ancient and medieval times. “How many of the innocent youngsters you see on milk cartons have fallen prey to the ceremonial knives of rabbis and lie buried in secret graves or were ground up into dog food in some jewish-owned processing plant?” asks Downey in his series of articles charmingly titled "Why We Hate the Jews", and follows it with this.

But Downey isn’t quite done. The whole idea of the notion of “Kinsman Redeemer” is that Jesus came to redeem not all humans, but his kinsmen. His kinsmen were the white people (since, as most renaissance paintings so accurately depict him, Jesus was blond and blue-eyed). It doesn’t really help, then, that Downey actually purports to reject “white nationalism” – he rejects white nationalism since white nationalism is, according to Downey, a pagan movement. Instead, he prefers to view his ideas as “Christian nationalism”, which combines the main tenets of white nationalism with dominionism and hysterical endtimes babble. It is not as charming as it sounds.

Of course, Downey and his group also rejects evolution – not on technical grounds but because evolution implies common descent and by the inference rule of Downey’s wacky wishful thinking evolution must therefore be false. Instead they claim that all races were created separately (and should not be mixed – “race mixing adulterates God's plan for the Ages”) and that the different races represent not only different species, but different genera (no, they do not exhibit any trace of having the faintest idea what that would mean).

To really emphasize their fervent contempt for reality, they are also 9/11 troofers (though you probably saw that one coming), and promote the idea that the levees of New Orleans were destroyed on purpose by the guv’mint during Hurricane Katrina, which, alongside most other natural disasters, was a punishment from God for America’s rejection of God’s laws on race in any case. I don’t think much good can come from delving deeper into Downey’s ideas so we’ll leave it at that. (We are also reluctant to link directly to any of Downey’s own stuff; you’ll have to google it).

Diagnosis: Could he be the most deranged psychotic madman we’ve encountered thus far? His candidacy is at least a strong one, though his influence will probably remain somewhat limited for the foreseeable future.

#615: Eugene Delgaudio

Eugene Delgaudio is the most colorful board member of the Public Advocates of the US, a deeply homophobic organization devopted to spinning gay-related news (and other things) into their own flavor of loon (their president is (or at least was) one Ronald Pearson). The result is the usual stuff, incuding conspiracy theories, hate, and paranoia (and some rather loaded quizzes for the public). Indeed, the organization serves as a backdrop for Delgaudio’s spamming activities (called “fundraising activities”), primarily in the form of requests for money sent to everyone who has ever discussed issues remotely related to homosexuality, regardless of what side the recipient may happen to be on, and selling his mailing lists (do don’t sign up for anything). Delgaudio also represents the Sterling District on the Loudoun County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors, by the way.

As for his anti-gay agenda, Delgaudio has said things like “[a]s homosexuals die off due to AIDS, the remaining AIDS carriers prey on children to replenish the Homosexual Community,” “the Homosexual Lobby and its billionaire donors are flush with cash. When Congressmen and Senators see the power and riches of the radical Homosexuals, they get tempted. You’d be surprised how many politicians are already bought and paid for,” and “I absolutely must find $73,575 before the end of next month to pay for printing, telephones, research, and postage.” The rest of his output consists of variations on those three (there is a completely weird one here), but primarily the latter. Here is a typical fundraising letter.

You can see Delgaudio claim that the Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa is infiltrated by “radical homosexuals” seeking to exploit unsuspecting college students here (and here). As for paranoia (well, more paranoia – everything he writes is drenched with paranoia) Delgaudio has claimed that “[i]n the past, the radical homosexuals have attempted to kill me, even threatening and stalking my family;” here is the accompanying fundraising letter.

Indeed, according to Delgaudio the homosexual conspiracy is supporting “anti-discrimination” measures as part of their plan to convert kids to homosexuality. Here is the accompanying fundraising letter.

The problem, according to Delgaudio, is that there are too few left willing to fight against the homosexual propaganda machine. Here is the accompanying fundraising letter.

Among his most famous screeds is his argument against the TSA’s full-body security scans: “It's the federal employee's version of the Gay Bill of Special Rights ... That means the next TSA official that gives you an ‘enhanced pat down’ could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission;” and here is the fundraising letter accompanying his “TSA porn scanner” rant.

Despite his apparent pathological shortage of cash the Public Advocates actually pay Delgaudio in excess of $ 150 000 a year (more here). In 2012 Loudon County actually initiated an investigation of Delgaudio concerning the way he was using his office. Delgaudio’s response to the investigations was actually quite epic (recommended link).

There’s an excellent, if old, portrait of Delgaudio here. And here is another, more recent, spam mail fundraising letter. A grassroots Delgaudio recall movement was formed in 2013 – this guy holds public office, for the sake of anything and everything that is decent upon this Earth!

In a pang of absolutely astonishing self-aggrandazing delusion Delgaudio was audacious enough to take the credit when TSA replaced the scanners in 2012.

Diagnosis: Thoroughly delusional and deeply paranoid bigotbot and spam machine. Probably more of a nuisance than a real threat, but his blind hatred should probably not be completely overlooked.