Anti-gay Religious Right activist and Virginia GOP politician E.W. Jackson stopped by Colorado Republican state legislator Gordon Klingenschmitt’s “Pray In Jesus Name” program recently to discuss his theory that the murder of nine black churchgoers by a white supremacist gunman in South Carolina was not primarily a racist hate crime but was rather an attack on Christianity
While acknowledging that the shooter “was motivated by race,” Jackson was careful to point out that the fact that the attack took place in a church means that “this is clearly another attack on Christians and Christianity.”
“There’s increasing hostility against Christians because of the biblical positions that we’re taking in this sort of post-Christian world that we’re starting to live in and we’re starting to experience in our country,” Jackson said.
Klingenschmitt then added that the shooter, Dylann Roof, was “demon possessed,” which prompted Jackson to declare that the shooting “was a demonic spiritual act.”
“We, as Christians, understand that there is more behind this than just a human being going in an attacking other human beings because of their race,” Jackson said. “The fact that he did it in a church, we know is a satanic or demonic act.”
Klingenschmitt and Jackson, apparently under the bizarre impression that the Nazis were liberals, then went on to assert that Roof, who had cited the work of the right-wing Council of Conservative Citizens in his racist manifesto, had “socialist leanings” and was a left-wing radical because he embraced Nazi imagery and slogans.
“Hitler was not a right-wing person, he was not a conservative,” Jackson declared. “Hitler was a socialist … So when people see these symbols and want to somehow associate it with conservatives, they’re completely wrong because that is simply not the history of socialism, which is exactly what Hitler called his party, the National Socialist Party.”
“Unfortunately,” he continued, “we have a very strong left-wing cabal in this country that are really extreme statists who want the state to control everything and it’s a very dangerous place to go.”
