Right Wing Religious Barbarism Update

It was never my intent to keep posting on this subject. Even after election '04, concern about religion and politics was about #24 on my list. But this is another painfully clear illustration of where we are right now:

On May 10, the Sheriff of Hamilton County, Ohio—which includes Cincinnati—delivered a fascistic tirade against “the forces of moral corruption,” at a public rally in the heart of the city’s downtown district. According to Sheriff Simon Leis, Jr., Cincinnati and police departments across the US are engaged in a battle against Satan and his minions—i.e., “liberal judges,” “atheists,” homosexuals, “feminists” and “liberals.”
...Leis denounced “proselytizing parasitic groups” like “gay and lesbian coalitions, rabid feminist groups, and the American Civil Liberties Union.” ...called on the return of “God and the Ten Commandments back [into] our schools and the workplace” to address America’s social problems.
...Leis’s speech ranged from alarmist and wildly inaccurate claims (such as, “Depression among children is up 1000 percent”) to outlandish theories whose cause-and-effect correlations collapse under the most minimal reflection (like blaming Supreme Court decisions “made in the 60s” for the spread of AIDS). ...The City Beat article interviewed Jay Twomey, a University of Cincinnati professor in the English department who teaches “Bible as Literature,” as well as other courses. Dr. Twomey discovered during his research that Sheriff Leis apparently plagiarized the bulk of his speech, lifting such lines as “satanic pestilence,” “rabid feminists,” and “perversion of the Internet” from a rant given by former Sheriff John McDougal of Lee County, Florida. ...
[Sheriff McDougal’s speech can be found online here: http://www.geocities.com/athens/academy/9517/sheriff.htm.]...