Health-Care Fatwa
As Randy Neugebauer cops to shouting “baby killer” on the House floor, a pastor who ran for VP with Alan Keyes has asked for the death of all 219 Democrats who voted for yesterday’s bill.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo
The vitriol stemming from yesterday’s health-care vote—from Randy Neugebauer’s shout of “baby-killer” aimed at pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak on the House floor to slurs shouted at John Lewis and Barney Frank from crowds outside the Capitol building—has reached a new apex: a call for the death of all 219 Democrats who voted for the bill, through the power of prayer.
Orange Country Pastor Wiley Drake fired off an email to his supporters this morning, telling them that all 219 Democrats have been placed on the “imprecatory prayer list.” “We’ll remember in November and pray Psalms 109 while waiting,” he urged, before listing each offending congressman by name in “Satan’s domain in Washington D.C.”
Click Below to Watch Stupak Get Heckled with “Baby Killer!”
Psalms 109:8 reads: “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership” followed by “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.”
Wiley Drake is a former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and received 47,000 votes as the vice-presidential candidate for Alan Keyes on a conservative third-party ticket in 2008. He has previously repeatedly called for the death of President Obama via imprecatory prayer.
• A Daily Beast Wrap: Obama Makes History • 11 Video Moments from Health Care’s Big Day• Four Historians on Obama’s LegacyIn recent weeks, Drake has stepped up his calls to stop the health-care bill through the death prayer, offered as part of a morning “Telephonic Imprecatory Prayer Team" conference call. After Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s wife and daughter were seriously injured in a car crash this month, Drake wrote “Since God almost let family members die, maybe Mr. Reid sees Imprecatory Prayer in a different light, ya think??”
In this newest email, Drake wrote “It is time for the saints to step up and get back in the war, between good and evil. See what God says the saints are to do in this battle.” He then quotes from Psalm 149:7 “To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people.”
John Avlon's new book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America is available now by Beast Books both on the Web and in paperback. He is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.