Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) seems intent to win the “Congress’ nuttiest lawmaker” award. It’s stiff competition, but Hostettler has made real strides.<\/p>\n
Less than a year ago, Hostettler made headlined for attempting to bring a loaded handgun<\/a> onto a commercial airplane. More recently, Hostettler backed a House measure to prevent the federal judiciary from enforcing its own court order<\/a> on a case involving state-sponsored religion.<\/p>\n Yesterday, Hostettler kicked things up a notch<\/a>.<\/p>\n Business on the floor of the House was halted for 45 minutes yesterday after Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.) accused Democrats of “denigrating and demonizing Christians,” prompting a furious protest from across the aisle.<\/p>\n The House was debating a Democratic amendment to the annual defense appropriations bill that would have required the Air Force Academy to develop a plan for preventing “coercive and abusive religious proselytizing.”<\/p>\n Hostettler, speaking against the amendment, asserted that “the long war on Christianity in America continues today on the floor of the House of Representatives” and “continues unabated with aid and comfort to those who would eradicate any vestige of our Christian heritage being supplied by the usual suspects, the Democrats.”<\/p>\n “Like a moth to a flame, Democrats can’t help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I’m actually glad Hostettler said this, because it helps demonstrate what constitutes denigration in the mind of an unhinged right-wing lawmaker. But as far as Hostettler is concerned, Dems’ interest in protecting the freedoms of religious minorities at the Air Force Academy necessarily makes Dems anti-Christian bigots. To prevent harassment is akin to a “war on Christianity.” Hostettler’s logic reflects the reasoning of a three-year-old — if you work to support religious liberty for those who aren’t evangelical Christians, then you must hate Christianity.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, Dems didn’t take kindly to Hostettler’s lunacy on the House floor, and the protest was swift and aggressive.<\/p>\n Yesterday, Hostettler had a choice: to agree to withdraw his words, or to stick by them and face a ruling from the chair that he had violated rules against disparaging another member on the floor. If the member’s words are taken down, it is considered a serious offense and the lawmaker would not be able to speak for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n Eventually, Hostettler rose and read a sentence that had been written out for him in large block letters<\/b> by a young Republican floor aide: “Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the last sentence I spoke.” (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That’s right, Hostettler is so far gone, aides have to write out instructions for him on what to say with “large block letters.” If he wants to act like a child, and use child-like reasoning, Hostettler shouldn’t be surprised when he gets treated like a child.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, Obey’s measure against religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy was defeated with overwhelming Republican opposition<\/a>. It’s almost as if the GOP is primarily a “white Christian party<\/a>” that is “not very friendly to different kinds of people<\/a>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) seems intent to win the “Congress’ nuttiest lawmaker” award. It’s stiff competition, but Hostettler has made real strides. Less than a year ago, Hostettler made headlined for attempting to bring a loaded handgun onto a commercial airplane. More recently, Hostettler backed a House measure to prevent the federal judiciary from enforcing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nAfter all, what prompted Hostettler’s rant? Rep. David R. Obey’s (D-Wis.) measure simply wanted the House to stand against “coercive and abusive religious proselytizing” at the Air Force Academy. This was hardly a dramatic request — the school’s own chaplain has confirmed<\/a> that a system of harassment exists at Air Force Academy, as has Lt. Gen. John Rosa<\/a>, the superintendent of the Academy.<\/p>\n