U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, suggests gays won’t make it to heaven. What’s more, in an interview, King intimated that the divorced or cohabitators could be thwarted in the pursuit of eternal salvation as the Christian faith teaches it.

King declined to say whether he thought divorce or cohabitation are sins. “I think that I’ll not comment on that part,” King said. “I’ll just say that what was a sin 2,000 years ago is a sin today, and people that were condemned to hell 2,000 years ago, I don’t expect to meet them should I make it to heaven. So let’s stick with that principle.” When pressed on the people he believed are included in the “condemned” category, King said, “Let me say it isn’t to me to pass that judgment, and those who choose a lifestyle that I’ll say is not one that’s annointed and favored by my faith — or their faith, for that matter — that’s between them and God.”

It looks like our national respite from Rep. Steve King and his mouth was to be short lived Not just The Gays, mind you, but cohabiters! And the divorced! You're all going to Hell, you monsters! No really, let's take a moment to absorb the wisdom here, because as far as Rep. Steve King is concerned a goodly portion of all of Iowa is going straight to hell, and Donald Trump too. King seems to know just how he's coming off, but he Just. Can't. Help it.Ah, the shellfish test. Have you eaten shellfish? It was a sin 2,000 years ago, so BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY, YOU CRAB-EATING HEATHEN SCUM.

Sorry, got carried away there. Ahem: The occasion was an interview in which the reporter probed Steve King's mind on religion, which is as bad an idea as it sounds like, and specifically whether he as a Catholic has any thoughts on the Pope himself suggesting that maybe gay people aren't inherently evil people to be shunned and punished and sent to hell by the likes of Steve Melon-Calves King. King delivered.



“I owe it to Pope Francis to read it carefully and read it with precision before I pass judgment on it,” King said. “I would just say that in fact to pass judgment on his document seems a bit presumptuous as I hear myself say that.”

The Jefferson Herald asked King, a member of St. Martin’s Catholic Church in Odebolt, if he would leave the church should Francis take it in a more progressive direction on foundational family issues. “I have not read the document so I couldn’t say,” King said. “These are, of course, delicate topics to deal with.”

Oh, good save, King Henry th' Eighth. It does sound a little presumptuous to suggest you'll be looking through your Pope's work with a red marker pen and a foul attitude; thank goodness the Pope of Your Entire Church doesn't need to pass your class in order to graduate God School. Though King may himself bolt that church if this nonsense about love and tolerance keeps getting tossed around.As much as I despise Rep. Steve King—racist crackpot, etc.—I love this story. King comes off as the ultimate Godfearing Conservative. It's a worldview in which "cohabiters" are destined for Hell, but Sen. David Vitter still gets to ride a private limo into Heaven because he's different. Divorced people are sinners, unless you yourself are one of them. And you must strictly obey the rules of your church as the only true path to salvation, unless your church starts getting more tolerant than you are in which case they can go right to Hell along with the cohabiters and the divorcees and the fornicators.I'm impressed. You always expect to see a glimmer of good in someone, some spark of kindness that you can seize on to say all right, that person isn't always a monster. King never really delivers on that; on pretty much any topic you can name that he has voiced an opinion on, his opinion is mean and bitter and self-centered and self-righteous and just reading it makes you a little carsick, like you've just spent twenty minutes on a windy road with a bag over your head. But enjoy him, Iowa. If it were up to him the whole lot of you would be burning in Hell, but that's what you elected him to say, right?