The Democratic party of Tennessee has disavowed their own nominee for US Senate because of his membership in a “hate group.”
Mark Clayton, a political gadfly who believes, among other things, that “Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to amend the Constitution so that he can become president and fulfill Hitler’s superman scenario,” came out on top in the primary, largely because no prominent Dems wanted to run against a strong incumbent, Senator Bob Corker.
“The only time that Clayton has voted in a Democratic primary was when he was voting for himself,” said the Tennessee Democratic Party in a statement. “Many Democrats in Tennessee knew nothing about any of the candidates in the race, so they voted for the person at the top of the ticket. Unfortunately, none of the other Democratic candidates were able to run the race needed to gain statewide visibility or support.”
“Mark Clayton is associated with a known hate group in Washington, D.C., and the Tennessee Democratic Party disavows his candidacy, will not do anything to promote or support him in any way, and urges Democrats to write-in a candidate of their choice in November,” the statement concluded.
The “hate group” referred to in the statement is Public Advocate USA, a group that, according to a description on its website, “has become a highly visible political organization and a model for other conservative activist groups in Washington D.C. and across the country.”
Public Advocate USA’s recent efforts include advocacy campaigns against same-sex marriage and in favor of pro-life legislation.
“Our members are often at the forefront of the defining political issues of our time, always defending the rights of fathers, mothers and children to live their lives free from government intrusions and the self-serving motives of liberal special interests and agendas,” the website says.
Why did they wait until Friday to disavow this nutcase? Come to think of it, they knew he was running for months and did nothing to steer Tennessee Democratic voters away from voting for him. Their cries of outrage ring a little hollow at this point, all things considered.
This fellow Clayton is pretty entertaining. His website is “Dedicated to the defeat of Neo-conservative Lamar Alexander.” Alexander ran successfully for re-election in 2008, where Clayton failed to gain the nomination. He spent no money in the primary, so we assume he just used his campaign website from his last effort.
He “believes the federal government is building a massive, four-football-field wide superhighway from Mexico City to Toronto as part of a secret plot to establish a new North American Union that will bring an end to America as we know it.” It would be pretty hard to keep such a massive construction project “secret.” Besides, Clayton and a lot of other Birchers know about it so it’s hardly under wraps.
This is real fever swamp stuff, akin to FEMA prison camps — something Clayton also believes in. Corker should definitely debate this guy, if only for the entertainment value in tagging the entire Tennessee Democratic party with Clayton’s beliefs.
And what about this “hate group,”Public Advocate USA. Yeah — they’re loony:
Public Advocate has a history of attacking the LGBT community. The letter notes that Public Advocate “has spread lies and vitriol about LGBT people to raise funds, impede progress toward greater equality and to deny LGBT people basic dignity and respect.” It also describes other anti-gay activities by the group, including:
•Provoking readers through a fundraising letter to “imagine a world where the police allow homosexual adults to rape young boys in the streets”;•Comparing marriage equality to bestiality through production of a “Man-Donkey Mock Wedding Ceremony”;
•Defamation of gay people as pedophiles and rapists to be feared. For instance, permitting gay men to be Boy Scout leaders, Public Advocate said, is “the same as being an accessory to the rape of hundreds of boys”; and
•Mischaracterizing national legislation to address an epidemic of anti-LGBT harassment at schools as “requir[ing] schools to teach appalling homosexual acts… force private and even religious schools to teach a pro-homosexual agenda… ram through their entire perverted vision for a homosexual America…. create a new America based on sexual promiscuity.”
If you’re going to oppose the homosexual agenda, you might want to think about doing it without portraying gays as child molesting rapists. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s bar for conservative “hate groups” is pretty low, but Public Advocate USA would have made the cut even if the bar was set at world record height.
Clearly, Tennessee Democrats didn’t do enough to stop Clayton from being the nominee. In that sense, they are complicit in enabling his campaign and have no standing to complain about what the nominee believes and who he represents.
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