Making people vomit the demon of handwriting analysis isn't the only thing John Hagee does. He also tells us that the Antichrist is a gay Jew:


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So does this hurt McCain with the gay Republican vote?

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Doubt it. If they're still Republicans after everything the GOP has said about and done to gays, they've grown a pretty thick skin when it comes to reckless homophobia and pandering to the crazier elements of the Religious Right.

It's funny that these are the very people, though, who talk about their "Judeo-Christian" values all the time, but beneath the surface is a glaring hatred of Jewish people. Sure, Hagee's a fringe element even for the Religious Right (although they know that Christian Zionism is something they have to pay attention to), but the fact that he thinks the Chosen People are just Biblical characters to talk about and assign the worst characters in his story about the end of the world to should be a problem in politics. (The gay thing would otherwise be ignored, as it was in the earlier Hagee flap when he only apologized for his comments on Catholics and everyone said they were happy.)

Steve Audio makes a good point about McCain repudiating Hagee and how that'll play out for this group:

Here's the point Tristero misses, which is the idiot-savant genius of McCain's campaign: No one on the right, NO ONE, cares about Hagee, with the possible exception of a few moderate genuine conservatives, that is. All 3 of them.

But the far-right Evangelical end-times Christians, for whom Hagee is a dog whistle the size of a Marshall stack, will still support McCain, even more now than before. Not only is he a "true believer" by courting and wedding Hagee, but now he's been bloodied by the secular humanists that threaten the Christian way of life. His rejection of Hagee's support isn't a betrayal of Hagee's prophecy, but a tactical retreat in the face of the abortionists, school desegregationists. and gay-marriage supporters whose defeat his administration will hopefully bring about. And thus is a stronger hero born.

In a normal world, a politician repudiating a movement's hero is a negative. But in the upside-down world of Republican politics, it can be a positive.

Steve makes an interesting point - these people love to see themselves as perpetual victims. They still complain about the liberal judges on the Supreme Court and the liberal media bias and how GWB isn't a real conservative and that they're being silenced even when they controlled all three branches of the federal government, etc. They construct what they want to see even when the facts contradict that narrative, so having a bit of real evidence to support it will probably just reify their delusion and help McCain with his tribalism woes - he's one of them, obviously, because he suffers like they do.

But, seriously, we're going to be completely forgotten in this drama. Of course the Antichrist is gay! He can't be both "fierce" and straight!

(Just as I finish this A. reminds me that the Christ was both queer and Jewish as well, so the Antichrist would probably have to be as well. Good point!)