Stoning is not "pro-life"

I did a double take when I read the headline: "Oklahoma Candidate Says Gays Should Be Stoned".

Oklahoma state house candidate Scott Esk wrote on Facebook last summer that gay people are “worthy of death” and should be stoned, later claiming that violence against gays is “in the old testament under a law that came directly from God.”

The average bigot is content to hate and to scorn. It takes somebody special to want to kill the despised group. (Actually doing that is called genocide, by the way. Lots of examples in history books. Curiously, the perpetrators aren't widely admired.)

That you call it a duty of your religion is a nice touch, Scott. You make Christianity sound pretty damned appealing. I'm sorry, I meant appalling.

Oh, and since you're citing the Old Testament, I assume you keep kosher and have multiple wives?

Esk describes himself as “100% pro-life” and “100% Traditional Family Values” on his campaign website and says, “I look forward to applying Biblical principles to Oklahoma law.”

Leave aside for the moment the large number of inconsistencies among Biblical edicts. Just consider these two ideas:

"I'm pro-life." "Gays should be killed."

Does anything strike you as, er, contradictory about those statements, Scott?

No?

Really?

I suppose gays don't count as "human beings", so that pesky commandment about not killing can be finessed on a technicality. Still, you have to have a pretty narrow definition of "life" to call yourself "100% pro-life" while being in favor of stoning Teh Gays, who, after all, look very much like "people" to the rest of us.

Yeah, yeah, I know, "pro-life" is all about the unborn kiddies. Well, what if homosexuality has a biological cause? What if it's possible one day to ascertain sexual orientation in utero? Will Scott be in the hospital, rocks in hand, ready to throw the second the umbilical is cut? Or will he even wait for the kid to be born? After all, it's not like the kid will be human. Why wait? Easier to do the deed when the fetus fits in the palm of your hand. Just cut it out of Mom's belly and get it over with. That'll leave the rest of the day free to do more of God's work.

Esk is pushing murder as a "family value". I'm sure Christ is proud.

Or pissed.