There is a growing Christian terrorist movement in this country. They are hiding behind the banner of “pro-life,” but they are anything but. They are anti-choice, anti-abortion, and regularly calling for the execution of abortion providers.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz recently accepted an endorsement from Troy Newman, the head of Operation Rescue, who has said numerous times that a just government would execute abortion doctors. Cruz also accepted the endorsement of Flip Benham, a man who was convicted of stalking an abortion provider after passing out hundreds of wanted posters that had the physician’s name and photo on it.

He is joined by attorney Thomas W. Condit, who called the for the execution of abortion providers at an anti-abortion rally outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Cincinnati.

The July 28 rally is a perfect example of the kind of language that incited killers like Robert Lewis Dear to walk into a clinic and brutally murder three people.

Condit told the crowd that:

We need to have an American version of the Nuremberg trials for crimes against humanity. … The people who work here, the people who work in abortion clinics around the country, we should get them when they wake up in the morning [so that] they are seeing visions of abortionists, the doctors, the clinic workers, the clinic directors, their lawyers, hanging by their necks after a fair trial. … We need to recapture the Faith by using the right words and I am here to tell you the right words. These people (abortion providers) are contract killers.

These are clear calls for violence, coupled with the continued sharing of the doctored Planned Parenthood videos to which the Colorado shooter made reference when apprehended by the police.

We keep hearing anti-choice leaders claiming they denounce violence and that no activists on their side condone violence. But there are countless examples of these activists calling for the execution of clinic employees and doctors.

GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina has made an entire campaign out of spreading the lies based on the doctored videos that suggest that Planned Parenthood is selling aborted fetal tissue for a profit. Hence Dear’s “no more body parts” comment when arrested. She is still heralded as an anti-choice hero for “exposing” the practice, even though it doesn’t exist and may very well have played a role in getting three innocent people killed.

This is a Christian terrorist movement, pushing lies and inciting violence in their ranks, hoping someone will take action, then cowering behind empty denials after the fact.

When will the government start persecuting these terrorist leaders for misusing their right to freedom of speech by calling for clear and blatant violence against others?

[Image: Ted Cruz by Gage Skidmore / Creative Commons]