On Thursday, the Colorado Springs Independent newspaper published an article on the state House candidacy of former Navy Chaplain Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt, a far-right evangelical Christian who is so radical that even state Republicans are disavowing his candidacy.

Right Wing Watch reported that 46-year-old Klingenschmitt’s recent statement that openly gay Rep. Jared Polis (D) is going to join ISIS and start beheading Christians in the U.S. has sent GOP officials scrambling to create some distance between themselves and the pastor, who has a long history of outlandish comments.

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Colorado’s Democratic Speaker of the House Mark Ferrandino said, “The Colorado Republican Party has squandered their credibility over and over again with these kinds of over the top and offensive remarks. They are far behind the people of Colorado when it comes to issues of basic fairness, civil rights, and apparently even common decency.”

Ferrandino continued, “I call on Ryan Call and other Republicans to denounce Mr. Klingenschmitt and his homophobic, extreme, and slanderous attacks against Congressman Polis.”

State Republican Party chairperson Ryan Call told Denver’s Fox 31, “Gordon, as I’ve said before, does not speak for the Colorado Republican Party. His views do not reflect my personal position or the position of the party.”

Call went on to say that Democrats are trying to take the “Todd Akin approach” of tarring all Republicans with the same brush, using Klingenschmitt’s outrageous statements to attack the whole party. He said that the approach won’t work because “(v)oters are too sophisticated.”

Retired Republican state Senator Andy McElhany told the Independent, “In my opinion, Klingenschmitt has no business in public office because he’s more than extreme.”

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Klingenschmitt is running to represent El Paso County, a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 2-to-1. Nonetheless, El Paso GOP Chairman Jeff Hays issued a carefully worded statement this week saying that Hays “wants to emphasize” that he doesn’t “condone Gordon Klingenschmitt’s comments. Klingenschmitt does not speak for the party or for other candidates, and the party does not speak for him.”

In the past, Klingenschmitt has said that Obamacare kills people because it causes cancer, that it’s only alright to attend a same-sex wedding if the two grooms “both shall be put to death,” and that all photos from same-sex weddings should have the words “worthy of death” printed across them.

He has said that Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) is possessed by a “demon of murder” because of her stance in favor of women’s right to choose, that the state of California’s rejection of Biblical laws make it “vulnerable” to invasion by Japan and that a “demon of rape” is behind attempts by transgender people to gain equal access to public facilities.

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Watch video about this story, in which Klingenschmitt makes his case for a U.S. theocracy, embedded below via Right Wing Watch: