Rusty Thomas, the head of the radical anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim group Operation Save America claimed to have extensive contacts in the Kentucky state government in a speech to his group when it was gathered in Louisville this summer to protest in front of the state’s last abortion clinic.
Thomas said in the July 22 speech, which OSA recently posted to its YouTube channel, that as he was considering bringing OSA to Kentucky for its national event, he went to Wisconsin to visit Matt Trewhella, an OSA-affiliated activist who has said that the murder of abortion providers is justifiable homicide and who has in recent years been attempting to convince government officials that they must “interpose” against federal laws on issues such as abortion rights and LGBTQ equality.
Thomas said that while he was there, Trewhella got a call from “a congressman from the state of Kentucky” who ordered 2,000 copies of Trewhella’s book “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates.”
“He orders 2,000 books and he spreads it in the church world and throughout the state government, the government of Kentucky,” Thomas said.
Thomas had previously said that the group was getting help “establishing our comings and goings” in Kentucky from “a congressman who is a dear Christian brother who is serious about restoring his state in righteousness.” Thomas did not specify if he was referring to a U.S. congressman or a state legislator.
Thomas added that Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who met with Operation Save America leaders in February, “has read [Trewhella’s] book, he has praised the book, he has quoted from the book in his official speeches to the state of Kentucky.”
In the book that apparently is admired by the governor of Kentucky and at least one state lawmaker, Trewhella argues that “lesser magistrates,” or lower-level government officials, have a duty to “interpose” to stop the enforcement of “immoral” federal laws and court rulings. Among the laws that Trewhella objects to are no-fault divorce, “the decriminalization of adultery” and the legalization of “homosexual acts” that once were widely considered “filthy behavior.”
In the book, published in 2013, Trewhella also writes that military personnel “have both a right and a duty to defy” the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. “Pray tell,” he writes, “how does allowing one man to stick his penis into the rectum of another man make the military ‘more professional?’” He adds that the “homosexualization of America’s military will weaken their ability to interpose against the unjust and immoral decrees of the Federal government in the future,” including the military’s ability to stage a coup if “Congress and the President continue to walk down this dark road of rebellion and anarchy.”
But, of course, the main thing that Trewhella wants elected officials to “interpose” against is legal abortion. In a speech to the OSA Louisville event that same week, Trewhella said that he was working to convince politicians that women who have abortions should be “tried for homicide”:
“When I tell you that we are hitting this from every possible angle, I am telling you that we are hitting this from every possible angle,” Thomas said. “Mercy ministries, prophetic ministries, working within the state govenrment. We have people on board who have accepted this vision and mission and they understand their duty before God for such a time as this.”
