Republican for MA Senate: Smurfs Cause Witchcraft, Gay Lifestyle "sad and meaningless"

By contrast, a 2012 Pew Research Center survey showed that only 48% of Republicans believe there is evidence that the Earth's atmosphere is warming (climate change) and a miniscule 18% percent of likely Romney voters believe that human activity is causing that warming.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has repeatedly waffled on the issue of climate change, and Republican moderates have accused the GOP majority of rejecting scientific research on climate change.

Among leaders in the charismatic Christian tendency coming to dominate the GOP, and which may have inspired numerous recent inflammatory statements from Republican candidates concerning rape and reproductive rights, it is a widely-held view that climate change can be caused by same-sex marriage and homosexuality, declining marriage rates, and the lack of Bible study in public schools.

Witchcraft is another major concern among charismatic evangelicals, whose Christian tendency is increasingly dominated by the movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), whose prophets claim to be able to receive extra-biblical revelation directly from God.

A September 2012 NAR-dominated rally, featuring New Apostolic Reformation prophets Cindy Jacobs and Lou Engle, was endorsed and promoted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Engle has been accused of backing Uganda's notorious "kill the gays" bill, and Jacobs has claimed that flocks of blackbirds fell dead from the sky, cursed by God's wrath, when President Barack Obama announced his decision to rescind the military's "Don't ask/Don't Tell" policy on LGBT citizens in the military.

In an October 3, 2011 interview with NPR's Terry Gross, on her Fresh Air WHYY radio show, intellectual godfather of the NAR C. Peter Wagner confirmed to Gross that Sarah Palin was blessed and anointed by one of his NAR colleagues, Kenyan evangelist Thomas Muthee, who called upon God to protect Palin from "every spirit of witchcraft", in a ceremony held at Palin's long-time Alaska church the Wasilla Assembly of God.

Prior to blessing Palin, Muthee made a speech in which he called upon Christian believers to "infiltrate" and occupy the "Seven Mountains", major sectors of society that include government, business, education, media, arts and entertainment, religion, and the family.

In his interview with Terry Gross, C. Peter Wagner claimed that the 1990s economic downturn in Japan was caused by an alleged sexual tryst between the Japanese emperor and a "sky goddess" who, claimed Wagner, might have been a succubus. Wagner's theory has been endorsed by former International Foursquare Gospel denomination president Jack Hayford, who gave the closing prayer at the 54th Inaugural Prayer Service for President George W. Bush, in 2001, at the Washington National Cathedral.

On September 3, 2012, independent Massachusetts U.S. Senator Scott Brown, running for re-election against Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren, joined candidate Sandi Martinez at a political rally held in Tewksbury, MA.