We’ve heard it many times before. Conservative and Christian evangelical leaders blaming liberals, and gays and lesbians for not only destroying the traditional family, but for hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, pestilence, and terrorist attacks. One cannot help but remember that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Rev. Jerry Falwell emphatically declared to Pat Robertson’s television audience that liberals were responsible for the terrorist attacks. A British preacher blamed Hurricane Sandy on President Barack Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage. Cindy Jacobs, co-founder of Generals International, blamed the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” After Hurricane Harvey, Pastor Kevin Swanson (more on him later) declared that the devastation was due to Houston electing an out lesbian, Annise Parker, as mayor. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, once blamed the Sandy Hook school shooting on America’s acceptance of gay marriage and abortion.

I may be going out on a limb here, but my somewhat-educated guess is that Pat Robertson likely holds the world’s record for blaming natural disasters on gays and lesbians and pro-choice advocates. He blamed the 6.7 magnitude earth that hit the San Fernando Valley in 1994, causing around $25 billion in damage and 72 deaths, on gays, lesbians and pro-choice activists. He claimed abortion caused Hurricane Katrina. In the late 1990s, he maintained that if Disney World kept allowing gay tourists, there would be a rise in hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombs and "possibly a meteor." And while Falwell was making his repulsive remarks after 9/11, Robertson stood by him shaking his head in agreement.



With the deadliest fire in the state’s history still raging in California, the death toll rising and unimaginable images of the destruction of the town of Paradise, an Ohio Republican Party chairman, Columbiana County Chairman Dave Johnson, posted a picture of the fires on Facebook, with the message: “God’s Punishment for Liberal California,” and “Hell on Earth brought to you by the Liberals in California!”

Like Falwell before him – whose apology was forced out of him – Johnson deleted the post and then apologized. In an interview with Cleveland.com he said “Look, that’s a meme. And it’s how I feel about liberals, but did I mean that God is going to punish everyone who lives in California? No. It’s a figure of speech, and I probably shouldn’t have done it. But I did, and it doesn’t change how I feel about what’s happened in California.”

Right-wing conspiracy theorists are also having a field day with the fires. According to Right Wing Watch’s Kyle Mantyla, “Ardent pro-Trump commentator and online conspiracy theorist Bill Mitchell declared on his ‘YourVoice America’ program yesterday that the Department of Justice should investigate whether Antifa is responsible for starting the wildfires that have devastated California, despite admitting that he literally has no evidence to support this assertion.”

In early August, Michael Stone reported on patheos.com that Pastor Kevin Swanson, speaking on his “Generations” radio program, said: “God is burning down California” because the citizens of the state “legitimize the sin of homosexuality.”

If you look at the history of California, they have been at the forefront of this. The first gay pride march occurred in San Francisco in 1970 and then San Francisco legitimized homosexuality in 1972. In 1982, Laguna Beach, California, elected the first openly homosexual mayor in United States history. In 1999, California adopted a domestic partnership law; I believe it was one of the first in the nation to do that.

Swanson added:

In 2005, California state legislators became the first in the nation to pass a same-sex marriage law … In 2008, the California Supreme Court then struck down Prop 22 in regard to marriage cases, and Prop 8 also was struck down later on that year, I believe. In 2011, California became the first state to mandate homosexual indoctrination for K-8 students and then, in 2012, California became the first state to sign a ban on therapy that was attempting to convert homosexuals into non-homosexuals. And then, in 2017, the California state schools implemented the homosexual indoctrination program … and that was the kickoff for the biggest fires that California has ever seen in its history. So God is burning down California in 2017 and 2018 after about 25 years of leading the pack to legitimize the sin of homosexuality in that state.

Swanson, who seems to have replaced Pat Robertson as the Religious Right’s most consistent serial blamer, has plowed this ground over and over again. He blamed “the victims of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal by claiming that ‘the immodesty’ of U.S. gymnasts caused Nassar to sexually assault the underage gymnasts,” Stone pointed out.







_______





About author Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His Conservative Watch columns document the strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.