Craziest Conservative of the Day: Michael Schwartz

By Michael J.W. Stickings

And just who is Michael Schwartz, you ask? Why, he's none other than the chief of staff to Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, and like his boss, and perhaps even more so, he's a right-wing extremist, not least when it comes to that favourite topic of right-wing extremists, homosexuality.

Schwartz spoke at the Family Research Council's "Values Voters Summit" on Saturday, and it was, more or less, just what you might have expected -- but with a twist. Here's some of what he said:

-- It's "a good instinct" for adolescent boys to be anti-gay.

-- "Homosexuality is inflicted on people."

-- Homosexuality is a "lifestyle."

-- Homosexuality is a "malady."

Here's the twist, as Schwartz (amusingly, because so ridiculously) linked homosexuality to pornography:

-- A "very good friend" once told him that "all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards."

-- Men need to be "healed of" the addiction to pornography.

Now, look, I'm not here to defend pornography. It is what it is, and I've seen enough of it to know that there's a dark side to it. I'm not against it -- far from it -- but I do see that it can tear relationships apart and that it can, if not kept in perspective, pollute one's mind. (Much of it is rather disturbing, to say the least, and there is no doubt it can create expectations that are not only unattainable but unhealthy to pursue.)

But to suggest that all pornography is homosexual is just inane. And insane.

What the likes of Michael Schwartz fear is not just homosexuality, which they see as a plague, but genuine human sexuality generally. They want people to live according to their own fundamentalist dogma -- that is, according to their own lies. They want people to live not according to what is human but according to a construct that seeks to suppress the human.

Schwartz isn't just a theocrat, though, he's a hateful bigot. And he's our Craziest Conservative of the Day.