Oh, Virginia, you crazy. And if you need proof, you need look no further than E. W. Jackson, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. Jackson, along with gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, “are a right-wing blog’s comments sections personified,” according to LOLGOP (which you really should follow on Twitter immediately). And, terrifyingly, they could win.
How bad can it be, you wonder? Oh, where to start? Well, how about on Jackson’s campaign website, where he makes his feelings on heterosexual marriage clear?
“I strongly support the only true definition of marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman,” he says. “Any other arrangement will never be a ‘marriage’ no matter what anyone calls it. This has been the definition for thousands of years, and it is disappointing that we have come to a place where radical activists, politicians, lawyers and judges arrogantly seek to change that definition and turn history, biology and reality upside down.”
Never mind that the “definition” of marriage has hardly been an unchanging institution for “thousands of years.” One need only comb the Bible for examples.
Speaking of upside-down reality, Jackson goes on to say, “I will defend the rights of Americans who hold to the truth against all efforts to persecute, marginalize and silence them.” Because in Jackson’s world, it’s the antigay Christians who are discriminated against. But wait, it gets worse.
In a 2012 interview with Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, Jackson said the kind of thing that makes you wonder if he knew his mic was on: “Liberalism and their ideas have done more to kill black folks whom they claim so much to love than the Ku Klux Klan, lynching and slavery and Jim Crow ever did. Now that’s a fact.”
It really makes you wonder how Jackson defines “fact.” I suspect it is not reality-based.
There’s also that time when Jackson said that gays are blinded by their one-track homo-sex-having minds.
“Their minds are perverted, they’re frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally and they see everything through the lens of homosexuality,” Jackson said in a 2012 interview with LaBarbera. “When they talk about love, they’re not talking about love, they’re talking about homosexual sex. So they can’t see clearly.”
In case Jackson’s feelings about homosexuals wasn’t clear, he later said, in the same interview, “Homosexuality is a horrible sin, it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies. It brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of.”
You know, I’m not a Christian scholar, but can Jackson really only think of a “very few things” that piss God off as much as homosexuality? Off the top of my head I can think of a few things that should be higher on God’s priority list: genocide, slavery (not a thing of the past, folks), rich people getting richer while the poor starve to death, rape, torture, pedophilia.
Oh, but wait. Jackson thinks that homosexuality and pedophilia are the same thing.
In 2010 he said, “I know there are people who say it’s unfair to associate homosexuality with pedophilia … but I believe there is a direct connection because what they really want is absolute, complete and total sexual freedom.”
But, hey, he said that three years ago. And we all know how quickly attitudes toward LGBT people are evolving, right? Then again, Jackson doesn’t strike me as the type to believe in evolution.
Please, Virginia, just say no to this guy and his buddy Cuccinelli. Be better than this.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock ’n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.