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LISTEN: Far-Right Pundit Ties Caitlyn Jenner to Charleston Shooting
LISTEN: Far-Right Pundit Ties Caitlyn Jenner to Charleston Shooting
It's happened -- right-wing pundits have started to blame Wednesday's mass killing at a Charleston, S.C. church on the nation's acceptance of LGBT people.
Leading the pack, notes watchdog group Media Matters for America, is Erick Erickson, a radio talk-show host, blogger, and Fox News contributor. He says the U.S. has lots its ability to address the "evil" that he says motivated accused gunman Dylann Roof, and he specifically cites the acceptance of transgender Olympian Caitlyn Jenner, mentioning it on his radio show and writing the following in a post on his site RedState.com:
"A society that looks at a 65 year old male Olympian and, with a straight face, declares him a her and 'a new normal' cannot have a conversation about mental health or evil because that society no longer distinguishes normal from crazy and evil from good. Our American society has a mental illness -- overwhelming narcissism and delusion -- and so cannot recognize what crazy or evil looks like."
"While Erickson is the first Fox personality to link Caitlyn Jenner to the Charleston shooting, his comments are part of the larger effort by conservative media to steer the public conversation about the massacre away from the underlying factors of racism and gun laws," Media Matters observes.
Among those participating in that effort is right-wing minister and former political candidate E.W. Jackson, who yesterday told radio host John Fredericks the nation shouldn't "jump to conclusions" that the shooting was "some sort of racial hate crime" because it happened at a largely African-American church, and the alleged killer had documented ties to white supremacist groups. Instead, Jackson said, the deadly attack may have resulted from the "growing hostility and antipathy to Christianity and what this stands for, the biblical worldview about sexual morality and other things" -- a hostility, he said, embraced by President Obama and motivated by (who else?) gay activists.
By the way, earlier in the week, prior to the Charleston tragedy, Jackson had called Jenner "insane."
Below, listen to a clip of Erickson, via Media Matters, and a couple of clips from Jackson, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.
