April 05, 2019 10:43 AM UTC

In Your Face: GOP Asks "Dr. Chaps" To Deliver Morning Prayer

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

The subject of considerable outrage in the Colorado House this morning is the request by an as-yet unknown Republican House member for former Rep. Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt of Colorado Springs to deliver the morning prayer ahead of the day’s floor work:

At the request of a GOP lawmaker, the House prayer this morning is being offered by “Dr. Chaps” — who once (jokingly) said now-Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay and Jewish, wanted to “join ISIS in beheading Christians.”https://t.co/2h7GPzTuYa#copolitics #coleg #cogov

— John Frank ☀️ (@ByJohnFrank) April 5, 2019

That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the issues with Rep.-cum-Rev. Klingenschmitt, who gained nationwide infamy ahead of and during his single term in the Colorado House of Representatives for his virulently anti-LGBT remarks both in his official capacity as well as on his Youtube “video ministry” taped programs. Klingenschmitt once claimed that a grisly attack on a pregnant woman in Longmont was “a curse of God upon America” for allowing abortion. He said that LGBT people “want to rule you” and that that gay Scoutmasters should prefer to be “drowned in the sea” than face God’s wrath.

At a moment when Republicans are facing hard questions about the avowedly hateful people working to recall Gov. Jared Polis and more recently Rep. Rochelle Galindo of Greeley–notably House Minority Leader Patrick Neville’s alliance with Pastor Steve Grant, who has vowed to recall what he called his “homosexual pervert” representative–bringing in a figure as uniquely polarizing as “Dr. Chaps” to stare down the House in his clergy robes and expect to be joined in prayer cannot possibly be an accident.

This was a very intentional provocation. The ugly message was loud and clear.