Religious-Right Radicals Join NRA Side in Gun Battle
There were two “anti abortion” “anti Gun Control” rallies yesterday in Missouri. The religious right cares if you are a fetus, but doesn’t care if you are a parent burying your bullet riddled 7 year old.
Religious-right extremists who have spent most of their energy in recent years vilifying LGBT people or fighting the nation’s culture wars on other fronts have found a new demon to slay: gun control.
It might seem odd that those who profess allegiance to the teachings of Jesus Christ would be so vociferous about making sure that Americans have continued, unfettered access to assault rifles. But in the wake of the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut, which ignited the most heated debate about gun control in this country in a decade, some of the religious right’s most rabid voices are joining the fight.
Matt Barber, a lawyer for the anti-gay Liberty Counsel, predicts a civil war over gun control. Bryan Fischer, the rabid mouthpiece for the homophobic American Family Association, has banned the use of the words “assault rifles” on his radio show. Even the Family Research Council, which describes itself as a pro-family organization, has targeted President Obama as “blatantly disingenuous when he says he believes in the Second Amendment.”
David Barton, the Christian-right pseudo-historian whose views on America’s founding have been widely debunked by mainstream historians, went on conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck’s Internet television show this week to claim the National Rifle Association (NRA) was formed to protect freed slaves from the Ku Klux Klan.