'I Quit the Evangelical Movement in Disgust': Former Evangelist Fears Right-Wing Lunacy Will Lead to More Murder

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet. Posted July 1, 2009.

What are the Republicans in Congress and the other "respectable" leaders on the far right -- from Focus on the Family's James Dobson to Rush Limbaugh, from Laura Ingraham to the leaders of the NRA -- doing to stop the right-wing domestic wave of terrorism exploding in the aftermath of President Barack Obama's election? I ask this as a former evangelical right-wing and "pro-life" leader who quit the right and the Republicans in disgust over their extremism.

In the wake of the election of our first black president, we've seen rage -- an abortion doctor gunned down; three police officers in Pittsburgh shot by a man who feared "they" would take his guns; and a black security guard at the National Holocaust Museum slain.

The FBI just arrested a well-known white supremacist and the host of an Internet talk show and Web site for saying that three judges should be killed. (Hal Turner, was arrested in North Bergen, N.J., and accused of posting statements on his Web site calling for the killing of three federal appeals court judges in Chicago who recently ruled on a gun-rights case.)

On June 26, another domestic terrorism story exploded: The gunning down of a father, mother and child by a self-appointed "border patrol" keeping America "safe" from Mexican immigrants. Here is what happened, according to the New York Times:

Arivaca, Ariz. -- "Somebody just came in and shot my daughter and my husband!" the woman shouted to the 911 dispatcher. "They're coming back in! They're coming back in!"

Multiple gunshots are then heard on a tape of the call.

The woman, Gina Gonzalez, survived the attack after arming herself with her husband's handgun, but both he and their 10-year-old daughter died.

The killings, last month, have terrified this small town near the Mexican border, in part because the authorities have now tied them to what they describe as a rogue group engaged in citizen border patrols.The three people arrested in the crime include the leader of Minutemen American Defense, a Washington state-based offshoot of the Minutemen movement, in which citizens roam the border looking for people crossing into the country illegally. Former members describe the group's leader, Shawna Forde, 41, as having anti-immigrant sentiments that are extreme, at times frightening, even to people accustomed to hard-line views on border policing.

There's a biblical story about the stoning to death of St. Stephen, where the yet-to-be-converted-apostle Paul didn't throw the deadly stones himself but stood holding the coats of the people doing the killing. Similarly, the right-wing leadership, are "holding the coats" of present and future violent actors. These coat-holders sow the seeds of hate with their words, then pretend horror when those words are taken seriously.

Who has been beating the anti-immigrant drum? Who has been calling abortion doctors "murderers"? Who has been saying that Obama will take away our guns? Who is ratcheting up the anti-Obama hysteria?

See more stories tagged with: republicans, pro-life, evangelicals, obama, conservatives, glenn beck, right-wing, domestic terror, laura ingraham, sarah palin, sarah palin, right-wing media, abortion clinics, open-carry church service, assemblies of god

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

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