Tea Party candidate Joe Miller was born and raised in Kansas, stayed there after high school and met his wife there. She was also raised in Kansas. Later, he attended Yale and moved to Alaska, but his world view comes from Kansas.
When I heard about Miller's background, my first thought was, "Let's click our heels 3 times and send him home!"
My second thought: "I wonder if he knows the Westboro clowns?"
Just because he grew up in Kansas doesn't mean he was influenced by the Kansas "GodHatesFags" Phelps family clan, does it? No, you can't taint a whole state because of the antics of one crazy, media-obsessed family. Alaskans know that from painful experience.
I didn't think much of Miller and the Kansas connection until I read the Mother Jones report saying that he hired a political consultant who runs a pray-away-the-gay project... AND a hate group that thinks God will punish America for allowing gay people to be gay.
Well, heck, that sounds familiar!
Could Miller be connected to Westboro?
"We've got deep, deep roots in Kansas - multi-generations," Miller said.Miller's parents, Rex and Sharry Miller, live in Manhattan [Kansas], where Rex used to own Christian Books & Gifts.
Manhattan, Kansas is just a few miles down the road from west Topeka, the home base of Fred Phelps' Westboro clan. It's a good bet that a radical Christian activist would check out the local Christian bookstores and get to know their owners.
Miller was raised in Salina and stationed at Fort Riley. His wife grew up in Junction City. These towns are just down Highway 70 from the Westboro compound.
Joe "deep roots in Kansas" Miller is now running for US Senate in Alaska. He won the GOP primary with the paid help of consultant Terry Moffitt, an extreme anti-gay activist with a goal very much like the Westboro hate group.
Mother Jones has the scoop on Moffitt:
Moffitt is the chairman of the Family Policy Network, a group that passionately opposes homosexuality.Moffitt's Family Policy Network runs a project called "Hope for Homosexuals" that encourages "practicing homosexuals to 'come out' of that destructive lifestyle, and to 'come home' to the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ… While the homosexuals celebrate their perversions, they are confronted with the truth that there is hope for deliverance in Jesus Christ." In June, the group hired an airplane to fly a banner near Disney World during a gay outreach day that read "Jesus Christ: WWW.HOPEFORHOMOSEXUALS.COM." It has flown this banner in other spots where there might be a collection of gays and lesbians...The group's guiding principles, according to its website, include opposition to all fornication and homosexuality. It denounces "any efforts to convince society that homosexual behavior or 'being gay' is somehow normal or natural." The organization explains its antipathy to homosexuality "is the result of a healthy fear of God's judgment that will otherwise be wrought on individuals who reject God's laws and our our nation for turning a blind eye." That puts the Family Policy Network in the extreme camp of anti-gay activists—those who believe that God could punish the United States collectively, if Americans tolerate homosexuality. (This is reminiscent of when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson partly blamed gay rights activists for the 9/11 attack.)
Rachel Maddow covered the Miller/Moffitt story on her show before she came to Alaska. It's the reason she was determined to interview Joe, even if she had to come all the way to Alaska and follow him around for two days until he spoke to her. Here's her original story on Miller & Moffitt:
When she was in Alaska, Maddow asked Miller about gays being cured. He said it's a state issue. (His absurd response is posted HERE.) So each state can decide whether or not the gay people living there can - or must - be "cured" by the dangerous and ineffective methods pushed by Moffitt.
As for Joe Miller: He isn't in Kansas any more, and it's up to the voters of Alaska to click our heels down to the voting booths and send him home!
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