#1444: Theresa Cao

An embarrassment to Tea Partiers, rightwing politicians and Thanksgiving family dinner parties everywhere, birtherism remains popular despite mainstream politicians’ attempts to avoid (without alienating) its proponents – it’s almost as if there were a conspiracy against them. Still, some – usually particularly aggressively lunatic – birthers sometimes manage to draw public attention to themselves. Theresa Cao, a big fan of the WND, is a case in point. Cao, a self-proclaimed birther and nutcase (the latter is not her description, admittedly), drew attention to herself by interrupting the second day of the 112th Congress by screaming, “except Obama, help us Jesus Christ,” during a reading of Article II, Section I of the Constitution (which deals with the requirement for Presidential eligibility). Cao was subsequently removed from the gallery by Capitol police and persecuted for being a good Christian. According to herself Cao felt compelled to let representatives know of the absence of proof for Barack Obama’s eligibility, pointing out that the only hope for the United States is a return to the faith of the Founding Fathers and that doing so is the opposite of Obama’s “socialism” as exemplified by the Affordable Care Act and government takeover of private companies including banks, insurance companies and car companies. Which, of course, is more or less equivalent to saying that Obama is technically ineligible for the presidency because he is not a citizen only using different words.

Diagnosis: Obama’s political views are objectionable; America is a Christian nation; Marxism is bad; therefore, if Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit. Why is that so hard to see? Perhaps “the Chewbacca implosion” is an apt epithet?

#1443: Ergun Mehmet Caner

Apparently one of the easy roads to recognition among paranoid, fundamentalist wingnuts is being an “ex-terrorist”, and there is a number of converts from Islam to Christianity on the far right (after all, the distance between the religious right and Taliban-style Muslim fundamentalism is often short) who claim to be former terrorists but have seen the errors of their ways, and who are currently busy confirming wingnut misperceptions of Islam as well as vigorously fighting against religious freedom, secularism, gay rights and the science of evolution and climate change – just for good measure. Their “ex-terrorist” status never stand up to scrutiny, but dishonesty is only a sin if you are not doing the work of Jesus.

Ergun Michael Caner is a fine example. A Swedish-American Baptist minister, Caner rose to fame (and wealth) with his 2002 book Unveiling Islam, quickly co-authored with his brother Emir in the wake of 9/11, about Islam and his claims that he was a devout Muslim trained as a terrorist. He is currently the President of Brewton-Parker College in Mt. Vernon, GA – not a place you should take seriously as an educational institution – and has previously served as the Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Arlington Baptist College as well as (and most famously) dean of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and Graduate School of Liberty University (the perhaps most influential fake university in the US, if you were unaware) – he was invited by Jerry Falwell himself, apparently a fan of his book. He lost this position after, as Wikipedia laconically puts it, “it became clear to Liberty University faculty and the Liberty University Board that he contradicted himself while making factual statements.”

The background for his fall from grace were pretty well corroborated accusations, in the beginning by bloggers, that Caner had made up much of his life story, for instance his claims to have grown up in Turkey when he actually grew up in Ohio; being raised in a devout Muslim home, rather than a nominal one, having been trained as an Islamic jihadist, and having debated dozens of Muslims – sort of the whole story that initially made him famous post 9/11. Caner was quick to play the persecution card, lamenting that “I never thought I would see the day when alleged ‘Christians’ join with Muslims to attack converts,” whereas his fans were quick to call employers and associates of his critics to put pressure on them to take down their critical posts. Liberty University’s Elmer Towns, dean of the school of religion, initially responded that the university’s board was satisfied that Caner has done nothing “theologically inappropriate. It’s not an ethical issue, it’s not a moral issue,” i.e. they refused to address the charges. By May 10, 2010, however, heat was sufficiently turned up for Liberty University to announce a formal inquiry into allegations of discrepancies in his background stroy. Caner claimed to be “thrilled that Liberty University is forming this committee, and I look forward to this entire process coming to a close,” and was promptly removed from his position as Dean of the seminary in June after the committee found “discrepancies related to the matters such as dates, names and places of residence.” He kept his job as a full-time faculty member of the seminary for the 2010–2011 school year, though.

His fans didn’t seem to care all that much, and Caner remains a popular speaker among wingnut groups who are “aware of the controversy” but nevertheless appear to take his claims at face value (case in point: the Twin City’s 12th Annual Community Prayer Breakfast in Bristol, Virginia, where organizer Sid Oakley more or less dismissed the charges as irrelevant). Caner himself claims that his critics are simply “frustrated people in their basements,” which is not really addressing the charges.

In 2011 Caner left Liberty to become Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs for the Arlington Baptist College, best known for the anti-evolution crusades of its founder J. Frank Norris (whom Caner describes as “one of Christianity’s most courageous voices”) – the President, Dan Moody, stated that Caner’s controversy was in the past and the new Vice President had his full confidence. Caner is currently the President of Brewton-Parker College in Mt. Vernon. That “college” stated that they needed “a warrior”, and that Caner “endured relentless and pagan attacks like a warrior” (i.e. because he lied about his background and was caught). Real universities, meanwhile, tend to at least pretend to care for truth, evidence, wisdom and moral integrity. Most of Caner’s critics, by the way, were evangelical Christians.

In 2013 Caner filed a lawsuit in the U.S. district court in North Texas claiming copyright infringement for reproducing, uploading and maintaining his videos without permission on youtube in order to silence (and punish) his critics. The lawsuits were ruled to be frivolous, partially because Caner never had the copyrights to the videos in question and partially because fair use is a sort of important legal concept (also here), but Caner’s behavior seems to have exhibited precisely the kind of “character” that Brewton-Parker Colleges was looking for.

Diagnosis: Perhaps more of a spineless opportunist than a loon, one wonders whether anyone – including Caner – would be able to live his life without at least believing that his actions are somehow justified by some higher goal. So, he’s probably a loon as well.

Note that we won’t give a separate entry to celebrity-of-questionable-character Jose Canseco for this, regardless of its weapons-grade lunacy.

#1442: Tony Campolo

Anthony “Tony” Campolo is a sociologist, pastor, author and public speaker, and as former spiritual advisor to Bill Clinton he is something of a celebrity fundie – one of the most influential leaders in the Evangelical left, in fact, and a proponent of progressivism and reform within the evangelical community. He has also become a leader of the Red-Letter Christian movement, and enjoys a career as a popular commentator on religious, political, and social issues.

But deep down, Campolo is in most respects just your standard lunatic fundie. In particular, Campolo is an ardent critic of the theory of evolution. Of course, Campolo doesn’t have the faintest idea what the theory actually says, but he claims that teaching evolution in public schools is problematic at best since Darwin endorsed “an extreme laissez faire political ideology that legitimates the neglect of the suffering poor by the ruling elite” (no, he doesn’t provide references) and that he wished to carry out a genocide to exterminate what he perceived to be inferior races (the idea might be based on the quote mining performed by Richard Weikart). Thus, we “should really fear the ethical implications of Darwinism,” it’s pretty much the Nazi ideology in a nutshell. Every claim is, of course, false, and what Darwin’s personal views, even if they were what Campolo claims they were, which they weren’t, have to do with modern biology is left very open, but I suppose many of Campolo’s readers don’t understand or know modern biology any better than he does. Concludes Campolo: “Personally, I hold to the belief that, regardless of how we got here, we should recognise that there is an infinite qualitative difference between the most highly developed ape and each and every human being. Darwin never recognised this disjuncture. And that is why his theories are dangerous.” Right. Shame on you, reality, for promoting a continuum rather than discrete, eternal kinds.

Diagnosis: Oh, yes, a liar for Jesus engaged in mortal combat with reality, reason and science. That state leaders have ever sought his advice is horrifying.

#1441: Stacey Campfield

Honorable mention to Jim Campbell, but giving him a separate entry would be rather ridiculous. Instead we return to … the state legislatures – Tennessee, this time. Stacey Campfield served as a state representative from 2005 to 2010, and despite a record of being a stupid bigot got elected to the state senate in 2010. In 2014 even the good people of Tennessee’s 7^th district seems to have had enough and managed to ditch him in the Republican primary elections.

Much of his work as a representative concerned standard wingnut issues, like sponsoring a bill to issue death certificates for aborted fetuses in 2007 (he said wanted people to be able to find out how many abortions were being performed in Tennessee and to note the loss of human lives, but those figures are, of course, already available, so Campfield was lying – big surprise), and in 2009 he introduced a bill to limit lottery winnings to $600 for people on public assistance and prisoners because he is evil people on public assistance should not be buying lottery tickets. (Tennessee law already prohibited the use of public assistance money to purchase lottery tickets, so the point was presumably really to show that he is merciless on poverty.) Rather unsurprisingly Campfield didn’t restrict his feelings of disgust to poor people and criminals, and in 2008, he proposed a bill to ban teachers from teaching as part of the lesson plan about homosexuality in Tennessee's public elementary and middle schools, saying that the topic should only be discussed by each student’s family. He has also expressed incredulity over the fact that psychology departments aren’t teaching their students how to pray away the gay with homosexual clients.

But his efforts in the house of Representatives pale when compared to his efforts as a state senator (a more detailed narrative can be found here). In 2011 he managed to gain international attention when he revived his 2008 “pro traditional family education” – the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill – complaining that gay activists were using claims about “bullying” as a cover for pushing “their social agenda in schools” and that Hollywood is “glorifying” homosexuality. To make sure no one would suspect him of being reasonable he also pointed out that “[m]ost people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community – it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men,” an urban legend, and that “[m]y understanding is that it is virtually – not completely, but virtually – impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex,” estimating the odds of heterosexual vaginal transmission at 1 in 5 million. And “[w]hat’s the average lifespan of a homosexual? It’s very short. Google it yourself,” said Campfield, apparently referring to the insane and methodologically laughable ramblings-poorly-dressed-as-scientific-investigations of lunatic pseudo-psychologist Paul Cameron. Meanwhile, Campfield’s colleague, representative John Ragan, tried to explain how homosexuality doesn’t really exist.

In 2014 Campfield compared mandatory signups under the Affordable Care Act to the “train rides” the Jews took under Nazi Germany (“Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for ‘train rides’ for Jews in the 40s”). He later complained that critics missed the point, which they surely didn’t (“the post was meant to draw attention to the loss of freedom that we are currently experiencing,” said Campfield, so the critics definitely didn’t misunderstand it), and besides there are death panels and government funding abortions (false), concluding that “I think Jewish people should be the first to stand up against Obamacare.”

In 2014 he also passed legislation protecting schools, teachers and students from possible prosecution for using traditional winter holiday greetings or displays. Though innocuous-sounding, it is pretty clear that it was intended as means to encourage religious proselytazion by teachers in public schools.

And if you wish to know Campfield’s views on the separation of church and state, as well as on evolution, this one is illuminating – virtually none of the “facts” cited are correct. It complains that evolutionists build “supposition upon supposition” and that scientific theories are both removed from common sense and always changing, therefore they should be viewed with suspicion (as should the separation of church and state be because [some oblique analogy]).

To date there have been two musicals and one play written about Campfield and his life in the legislature.

Diagnosis: And they just keep coming, don’t they? Hopefully Campfield’s been retired from the game by now, but we’re not optimistic that Tennessee will avoid similar embarrassments in the future.

#1440: Donald Calbreath

There are, in fact, creationists with real credentials. Donald Calbreath, for instance, seems to have an education in chemistry and served as a professor in the Department of Chemistry, Whitworth College (a small Presbyterian liberal arts college) until retiring some years ago. No, he doesn’t have relevant credentials, but what did you expect? He isn’t a scientist, either (at least we are unable to locate any scientific research record), but he is a signatory to the Discovery Institute-instigated petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.

He is currently a research team member at Science and the Spirit: Pentecostal Perspectives on the Science/Religion Dialogue at Calvin College, which is not a research team – Calbreath himself, for instance, specializes in defending non-materialist neuroscience through the standard fallacies and by demonstrating complete ignorance of and failure to engage with the literature on consciousness. He also has a record of tracts and screeds on stem cell research, abortion, “miracles of healing”, the relationship between Pentecostalism and science (particularly notable is the paper “7 Serotonin and Spirit: Can There Be a Holistic Pentecostal Approach to Mental Illness”), creationism, and zeh gays. He has also been a critic of public education, claiming – in American Laboratory – that schools are indoctrinating students with truth and reason, and complaining that students risk getting lower grades just because they get the wrong answers to questions on tests.

Diagnosis: Fundamentalist who hates truth, reason and freedom but desperately tries to convince himself otherwise. One of many, and we are reluctant to say that his influence is negligible.