In the immediate wake of the 2012 election, (click here) Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called on his fellow Republicans to “stop being the stupid party.” He said it was “no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments – enough of that.” Jindal was referring to theinfamous remarks by top-tier GOP candidates, most notably former Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, about rape and pregnancy.
So much for that! Jindal has appointed Akin’s most prominent defender, Tony Perkins, to a seat on the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement. Perkins is president of the D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC), an anti-gay hate group known for making its share of “offensive, bizarre comments.” Perkins and the FRC earned that designation by consistently demonizing and smearing gays and lesbians – including calling them pedophiles – with falsehoods.
Perkins has deep Louisiana roots. He served in the state House of Representatives from 1996 to 2004 and ran unsuccessfully for the US. Senate, placing a distant fourth, in the 2002 GOP primary. Before that he was a TV news reporter and a reserve police officer, until he was suspended in 1992 for failing to report an illegal conspiracy by anti-abortion extremists to his superiors. He became head of the FRC in 2003 but never fully left Louisiana.
In fact, Jindal named Perkins to the Louisiana Commission on Marriage and Family in 2008, supposedly on the basis of “expertise in community programs and assistance.”
The Commission on Marriage and Family website provides meeting minutes for the past three years. Perkins is listed as absent for seven out of seven meetings. Since Perkins has a day job in Washington, D.C., and is apparently unable to attend those meetings, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be any better about attending the Commission on Law Enforcement meetings.
The 20 hate groups within Louisiana's border are four KKK groups, five Neo-Nazi groups, two racist skinheads, one Christian Identity, five White Nationalist, one Neo-confederate, one Black Separtist and one general hate group called M.A.C.S. Klan Merchandise. True to form of any big box store, the Klan Merchandisers don't discriminate in their identity for commercial purposes.
General Hate Groups are described as: these groups espouse a variety of rather unique hateful doctrines and beliefs that are not easily categorized. This list includes a “Jewish” group that is rabidly anti-Arab, a “Christian” group that is anti-Catholic and a polygamous “Mormon” breakaway sect that is racist. Many of the groups are vendors that sell a miscellany of hate materials from several different sectors of the white supremacist movement.
This is about as ineffective a state government as any in the country.
