Colorado state lawmaker Gordon Klingenschmitt has a knack for saying just the right thing to outrage nearly everybody.
The representative from Colorado Springs who goes by his televangelist alter-ego Dr. Chaps has a long history of comments that have rattled the sensibilities of both parties: He’s compared Jared Polis to ISIS. He’s said that the tragic attack on a woman in Longmont that resulted in the death of a fetus was God’s curse on America. And now he’s done it again — this time about the Boy Scouts of America lifting its ban on gay leaders.
On his “Pray In Jesus Name” show Monday, Dr. Chaps issued a dire warning to parents: Pull your sons out of Scouts before they’re molested.
“If your boy is in one of those organizations, you need to get him out of there,” he said, “because what they’re going to do is promote homosexual men to mentoring and camping with your boys in the woods, and it will lead to child abuse.”
He quotes from the Bible to show just how serious he is: “Whoever caused one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Did he just say gay Scout leaders should be drowned?
That’s how the executive director of Colorado’s foremost LGBT advocacy group took it.
“These comments are reprehensible – and he should be ashamed of himself for making them,” said One Colorado’s Dave Montez in a statement. “Gay adults are involved in scouting for the same reasons everyone else is; to serve youth, and to help them grow into good, strong citizens.”
Montez called on leaders in the Colorado Republican Party to condemn Klingenschmitt’s remarks.
And that’s exactly what they did. Chairman of the state GOP Steve House had this to say:
“We strongly condemn Gordon Klingenschmitt’s highly offensive comments. As we’ve said in the past, Gordon does not speak on behalf of the Party, nor do his words reflect our Party’s values.”
But that’s not enough for some progressives.
“It would be easy to dismiss Klingenschmitt’s statements as the ravings of a deranged lunatic, except for the fact that he is an elected Republican legislator in the state of Colorado,” said executive director of Colorado ProgressNow Amy Runyon-Harms in a statement. “It is months past time for Colorado Republicans to ask Rep. Klingenschmitt to resign.”
