David Barton is a long-time Religious Right activist and Christian nation pseudo-historian whose 2012 book about Thomas Jefferson so shoddy that it was pulled from circulation by its Christian publisher. Promoting inaccurate, misleading, and downright false information has been a hallmark of Barton’s career and a centerpiece of his effort to institute a virtual theocracy in America in which our nation’s laws are literally based upon the Bible.
Naturally, he has now been tapped to take over the super PAC supporting Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign:
David Barton, an influential Christian author and activist, is taking charge of the leading super-PAC supporting Ted Cruz.
The super-PAC, Keep the Promise PAC, is the umbrella for a group of related pro-Cruz political committees that raised $38 million in the first half of the year, more than the super-PACs supporting any other candidate with the exception of Jeb Bush.
“From the outset, the Keep the Promise PACs made their mission to provide a voice for the millions of courageous conservatives who are looking to change the direction of the country,” Keep the Promise PAC said in a statement today. “Barton’s involvement is an important step signaling that the effort will not be run by a D.C. consultant but by a grassroots activist.”
A long-time vice-chairman of the Texas Republican Party, where he is based, Barton is notorious for exaggerating his own accomplishments and for regularly making outrageous statements such as his assertions that the Founding Fathers opposed the teaching of evolution, that the Bible opposes Net Neutrality, and that Jesus opposes the minimum wage.
He believes that demons control the government and is also a Second Amendment radical who insists that there should literally be no limits on what sort of weapons individuals can own, including tanks, jet fighters, or nuclear weapons.
But most of all, Barton is vehemently anti-gay, claiming that schools are forcing students to be gay and that the government should regulate gay sex. Recently, he has been telling audiences that the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage will force all student athletes to share the same locker rooms and churches to hire pedophiles to run their nurseries while requiring the military to protect those who engage in bestiality.
Barton also believes that homosexuality is “reprehensible and disgusting” and “very repugnant” and that the government can outlaw it. He has also repeatedly asserted that a cure for AIDS will never be found because the disease is God’s punishment for sin:
And now he has been placed in charge of coordinating millions of dollars to help elect Ted Cruz to be the next president.
