June 27, 2014 01:46 PM UTC

Republicans Run From "Dr. Chaps"

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch blog continues the national attention controversial Republican HD-15 nominee Gordon "Dr. Chaps" Klingenschmitt has received since winning Tuesday's primary election–attention that is starting to make Colorado Republicans rather nervous:

Klingenschmitt runs the Pray In Jesus Name Project, which is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBT hate group. He defeated Dave Williams in the Republican primary by about 300 votes – 52.5 percent of the vote – to earn the right to face unopposed Democrat Lois Fornander in the GOP-leaning district on Nov. 4.

Colorado voters who backed Klingenschmitt were either unaware of or support his views that gay people are possessed by demonic spirits and that Obamacare causes cancer, according to Right Wing Watch…

As his political career took hold this week, he told the Colorado Springs newspaper: “I’m very humbled by the support of the voters. This was their campaign.”

“The voters are rising up with me to defend the First Amendment, religious freedom, smaller government, lower taxes and the right to life,” Klingenschmitt told the newspaper. “And those are the values I will fight for in Denver.”

But as the Denver Post's Jesse Paul reports today, the values Klingenschmitt hopes to bring to Denver next January are, Denver Republican brass really wants you to understand this, not Republican values:

"Gordon does not speak on behalf of the Republican Party. To suggest otherwise is inaccurate and dishonest," said Ryan Call, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. [Pols emphasis]

Klingenschmitt, a 46-year-old graduate of the Air Force Academy, says he is ready to be a "team player" and that he declines "to talk about his religious views as a candidate." But he said, if elected, he will continue his daily half-hour religious-based news show, broadcast on DirectTV and other, smaller outlets.

"If people want to know my religious views, they should come to church and hear them," Klingenschmitt said in an interview Thursday with The Denver Post. "But this campaign is not about my religious views."

Don't worry, Ryan Call, we're not going to try to convince our readers that mainstream Republicans believe, like "Dr. Chaps," that both Barack Obama and Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis are "demons," or that only people who are "going to heaven" deserve equal rights from government. You might find a few more who agree with Klingenschmitt that "Obamacare causes cancer," but that's just because they watch FOX News.

It's simply enough to note, as SPLC and Right Wing Watch noted above, that enough voters either didn't know the kinds of things Klingenschmitt has said on his show, or they didn't care. Whichever the answer, Klingenschmitt has now secured the Republican nomination to run in a normally safe Republican district.

And whether Ryan Call likes it or not, nominated candidates, and especially elected legislators, do reflect on their party. It's something Call knows from experience, having dealt with Vicki Marble, Lori Saine, Jared Wright, and Justin Everett…you get the idea. It's easy to understand why Call is trying to disown Klingschmitt–and to pity his futile gesture.