So, I take it that we have all seen this clip of Christine O’Donnell, who has just won the Delaware Republican primaries, with 53% of the vote:
The Guardian reports:
Sitting in the lounge of the Fairfield hotel in Dover, Delaware, with breakfast guests eavesdropping, the Tea Party’s newest star briefly discussed her belief that masturbation is sinful.
In an interview with the Guardian, only hours after her shock victory in the primaries, she did not hesitate when the issue of her infamous quote came up. In a television programme in the 1990s, O’Donnell, then head of a Christian conservative lobby group, Saviour’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth, said: “The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can’t masturbate without lust.”
She backed off a little today, saying it had been long ago. “My opponents dug up a quote I gave 16 years ago. That is how desperate they are. I was a pundit. I was very passionate in my 20s and wanted to share my beliefs,” she said.
Asked if she still believes today that it is sinful, O’Donnell dodged the question. “It is irrelevant to this race,” she said, moving on. She may still hold the view that it is sinful, one that could alienate moderate voters, or she does not want to offend her conservative Christian base by saying she had had a rethink. Either way, she isn’t saying.
There’s also this:
Now TPM has unearthed a 1997 C-SPAN video that shows O’Donnell voicing concerns that a drag queen ball “celebrates the type of lifestyle which leads to the disease,” objecting to terming those with AIDS “victims” and calling AIDS a consequence of a certain “lifestyle which brings about this disease.”
After complaining that “there is a gross disproportionate allocation of funds” going to AIDS treatment and prevention in comparison to resources designated to combat heart disease, O’Donnell compared living healthier to changing the “lifestyle” that she said lead to AIDS.
“When somebody finds out that they’re at high risk for heart disease, they cut out the fatty foods, they start exercising, they quit smoking. However, our approach to AIDS, when you’re in a high risk behavior, is to eliminate the consequences so that you can continue in your lifestyle which brings about this disease,” O’Donnell said.
Referring to people who get AIDS as victims, O’Donnell said, was “the kind of spinning with words and manipulating words that empowers the bias when it comes to AIDS.”
O’Donnell also took issue with government spending on preventative programs. “A lot of the money that we’re spending goes to things that we know will not prevent AIDS, but indeed will continue to spread the disease,” she said. “A lot of our money goes to distribute condoms in high schools, and a lot of our money goes to distribute material that is literally pornographic.”
In Delaware?
I haven’t seen such a spectacular political implosion, since Labour in the 1980s.
Hat tip: Andrew Ian Dodge
Gene adds: On Twitter: “US policy needs to empower moderate/peaceful elements within Republican party to isolate the radicals.”
