Minnesota State legislator claims that gays were responsible for the holocaust.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I think I’ve got a fucktard of the month candidate here.

We’ve got a fella in the Minnesota state legislature up here by the name of Arlon Lindner. Arlon is a Republican State Representative from Corcoron. Arlon is on the very far right and is considered to be somewhat of a loon even in his own party. Every year or so, he seems to say something really stupid and offensive on the floor of the legislature and gets people all pissed off at him. Here are a few examples of his comments from the past:

**“We should never tolerate two men or women being married. Next it could be a man marrying a child or a man marrying a dog.”

– April 28, 1997, after the House voted to keep a ban on same-sex marriages.

" . . . But don’t impose your irreligious left views on me."

– Feb. 23, 2000, to Rep. Michael Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, during a debate on whether the prayer that opens each House floor session should remain nondenominational. Paymar, who is Jewish, spoke in favor of nondenominational prayer. Lindner said he didn’t intend to insult Jewish people.**

(This next one is my personal favorite)

**“He claims to be a god-king, a leader of the Buddha religion, which historically has been considered a cult because of its anti-Biblical teachings concerning the one true Holy God, Creator of Heaven and earth and His Son, Jesus Christ.”

– April 30, 2001, on the Dalai Lama, in an e-mail to fellow House members saying that he would not attend a speech the Buddhist leader would give.**

Lindner has always been regarded as kind of the mildly embarrassing crazy uncle of the Minnesota legislature, but then last week he outdid himself
Lidnder has sponsored a bill in the house that seeks to repeal anti-discrimination laws for GLBT people in Minnesota. Arlon wants to remove “sexual orientation” as a protected class in state human rights law. Objectionable, certainly, but not particularly remarkable for the religious right. Arlon started off last thursday with a series of typically paranoid and homophobic remarks, but again he said nothing especially eye-opening until he dropped this little pearl of edification:

*And he argued with objections to removing sexual orientation as a classification in the law’s definition of Holocaust survivors and victims.

“I was a child during World War II, and I’ve read a lot about World War II,” he said. “It’s just been recently that anyone’s come out with this idea that homosexuals were persecuted to this extent. There’s been a lot of rewriting of history.”*

Now, it is matter of irrefutable historical record that homosexuals were persecuted and thrown into the death camps right along with the Jews (not to mention Jehova’s Witnesses, Gypsies and disabled people). Gay people were forced to wear pink triangles analogous to the yellow stars forced on Jews.

Lidner was blasted for his ignorance by DFLers, religious leaders and at least one holocaust survivor, but Arlon was undeterred and actually made it worse for himself on monday:

"What I’m trying to prevent is the Holocaust of our children getting STDs, AIDs and various other diseases that’s going to affect their lives the rest of their lives. If you want to sit around here and wait until America becomes another African continent, well then you do that, but I’m going to do something about it."

This remark has now incensed black DFLers in the House who called his Africa reference “racist.” In fairness, I’m willing to give Arlon a pass on that one, as I think it was stupid but not intentionally racist. This, however, was the last fucking straw.

***On Monday, after his remarks on the House floor, Lindner told a Star Tribune reporter that the main gay participants in the Holocaust were Nazi concentration camp guards – a notion floated in “The Pink Swastika,” a book he said he had not read but was trying to obtain.

“The Pink Swastika” contends that the Nazi Party was controlled by gays and lesbians and that they were largely responsible for Nazi atrocities, including the deaths of 6 million Jews in concentration camps.***

So now Lindner is claiming that not only were homosexuals not victims, but that they were, in fact, the perpetrators of the holocaust.

Ok, now crazy can be fun, but there has to be a limit. Either Lidnder has a serious mental deficiency or he is a fuckhead of the highest order. Either way, it is time to get this fucking assclown out of the Minnesota State Legislature. It’s not fucking cute anymore. I’m not going to laugh at double whammy of homophobia and holocaust revisionism in the same fucking soundbite. Get the fuck out of my legislature Lindner, and quit fucking embarrassing my state.

[martin_ibn_martin]

Ok,

First off…
I don’t have a cite handy, but…I believe the gist of the sought-after book to be the assertion that many upper-echilon Nazis, particularly in the SS, engaged in a particular sort of homosexuality. Rumor has it that there was no shame in being the dominant partner, but the passive partner was seen as less of a man. If you weren’t aggressive like them, or one of their toys, into the camps you went.

Not really homosexuality, more like a penis used as another weapon. Real homosexuals, people who didn’t play like them, were the persecuted class.

Perhaps too fine a distinction for ol’ Arlon to make.

Bless you son, and the political trials your state has endured.

I wonder how this assbutt gets along with Jesse…

Martin

[Ulterior]

What an… no, I’m not going to bother with some sort of flip compound insult. He doesn’t deserve it, nor should this sort of dangerous nonsense be trivialized.

This is also damned scary, though–from the same article:

“A lot of people don’t talk about it,” said Joe Andres, a Corcoran resident for 45 of his 47 years and owner of the Corcoran Locker Plant. “But apparently he is a little prejudiced, by the way it sounds.”

Jeebus.

Now, I used to live in Winnipeg. I know all about Minnesotan understatement (cf. “That’s different”; “Little chilly today, huh?”) But… wow.

“Most people out here are pretty conservative,” said Scott Treptau of Treptau Repair, a lifelong Corcoran resident and another Lindner voter. Would he vote for him again?

“It depends on how much more he says,” Treptau, 43, ventured. “If it stays the way it is, probably.”

1. If “most people out [t]here” would let something like this pass, damned if I would send my worst enemy there.
2. So under present circumstances, he isn’t saying enough for this corkhead to vote against him? How much more does he have to say?

[hijack]
But out of sheer curiosity, what is a DFLer? Some sort of Minnesota thing?
[/hijack]

-Ulterior

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

The DFL is the Democratic-Farm-Labor party. It’s really just the Minnesota Democrats but we always have to be different up here.

[GIGObuster]

AFAICR Rohm was the only leader of the Nazis that was openly gay, but that was early when the Nazis were taking power. The attitude of many Germans at the beginning of the 20th century was one of relaxing anti-homosexual rules, but besides the fears of communism one reason the nazi party took power was that conservatives opposed those new laws, as did the nazi press. But many nazis were tolerant of gays, things came to a head when the SA and their leader Rohm was perceived to be a treat to Hitler, the dictator and his henchmen then made the decision to use the homosexual angle to justify, in part, the killing of the SA in the night of the long knives.

http://www.fathom.com/feature/122260

If, at first, even Heinrich Himmler was prepared to protect Rohm–‘The object of these attacks is Staff Chief Rohm whom the Jews and their lackeys have regarded as the most unpleasant and feared leader of the SA and SS since the creation of the Party’–this mood changed once the Nazis were in power. Specifically, Hitler feared that Rohm’s efforts to transform the SA into a militia were alienating the army, and hence represented a threat to Hitler’s own power. There is no evidence that in June 1934 Rohm was contemplating a Putsch. Nazi propaganda, however, justified Hitler’s ensuing murder of his SA associates in terms of striking down a putative conspiracy, the restoration of law and order’ against the anarchic gangsterism of the SA, and last but not least, as a cleansing operation against sexual ‘deviants’.

Once the propaganda connection was made by the Nazis of homosexuality with treason, impurity and many other evils, the propaganda machine just kept going. Even tough some Nazis were, in the beginning, tolerant of homosexuals; in the end the gays ended up in the concentration camps.
There was talk of other Nazi leaders being gay, but the night of the long knives was the signal to keep their activities secret, so there is not much there, mostly suspicions.

As for that Minnesota legislator: yep, what a fucktard.

[Coldfire]

The real scary part isn’t that people this stupid are alive and breathing (though hopefully not breeding).

It’s that there’s enough people stupid enough to vote him in. Yikes.

[Zoe]

I too was going to make a flip remark until I saw that he is truly a chime head. But it really is frightening that people like this get elected and reelected. I don’t understand it! Can’t the legislature censure him?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Zoe said:
Can’t the legislature censure him?

The DFL is currently filing an ethics complaint against Lidnder (for the fourth time in four years). Lidnder will get a hearing and the proceedings could end in sanctions ranging from censure, to removal from his chairmanship of the Minnesota tourism committee (how about that, he’s the guy who’s supposed to bring tourism here) to his removal from the legislature (unlikely).

I agree that the really scary part is that his constituents don’t seem to have much of a problem with him.

[Earthworm_Jim]

*Originally posted by Zoe *
**Can’t the legislature censure him? **

But why would, or should, they? Obviously, he is representative of a significant portion of the population - this is his 6th consecutive term. I think that his views reflect more poorly on those who elect him to office than himself. To elect him is to espouse his point of view.

[JRDelirious]

Man, he must bring in a phenomenal amount of porkbarrel to that district. Either that or his opposing candidate is from a Khmer Rouge/NAMBLA coalition…

[matt_mcl]

but that they were, in fact, the perpetrators of the holocaust.

No, it’s true. We were responsible for the Holocaust. The pink triangle thing? We just did that to get rid of our ex-boyfriends.

(all the :rolleyes:s in the world are insufficient)

[Governor_Quinn]

It would appear, based on the evidence given, that Arlon Linder is Minnesota’s official representative of the “kooky right”. By an obscure clause of the U.S. Constitution, every state legislature manditorially gets one. In California, it was H.L. Richardson.

[Shodan]

It’s a far cry from blaming gays for the Holocaust, but read The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad for an interesting parody of the homoerotic overtones of much of the Nazi propaganda of the 30s - leather, phallic gestures like the Nazi salute, etc.

Lindner’s idea that gays did not suffer in the Holocaust is obviously revisionist nonsense, but I have heard the claim that some gay-bashing is motivated by repressed homosexual longings - like Ray Cohn’s attacks on gays during the McCarthy era.

But Martin bin Martin is probably correct - a mind that would engage in this sort of reflexive bashing is not a mind capable of making subtle distinctions. People who hate don’t think about it - they just react.

Regards,
Shodan

[NurseCarmen]

Ugh. I was hoping nobody would point this fucknut out. I’m embarrased to be from Minnesota. At least I’m not from Cockring. oops, or is that Corcoron? Am I the only Minnesotan that has noticed his southern drawl? Can’t Corcoron even produce their own breed of idiot? Must they import?

[Eve]

Has Arlon Lindner ever met Mel Gibson’s dad, Hutton? I think they’d become best pals.

[cornflakes]

On Monday, after his remarks on the House floor, Lindner told a Star Tribune reporter that the main gay participants in the Holocaust were Nazi concentration camp guards – a notion floated in “The Pink Swastika,” a book he said he had not read but was trying to obtain.

You know, he should try Amazon.com:

Availability: Usually ships within 1-2 business days

[Otto]

He would, but the lesbian Amazons keep losing his orders.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

I thought that when you found an item like this, you were supposed to work it into a GD thread, with the premise that this represents the entirety or the majority of that political party, and then pose some sort of question pondering how this might influence public perception of that party, or claim future political victories as a result of this for your party. Then when you are called out for your fractured logic and blind devotion, you should dig up some blog cites and have people come to support your reasonable debate style.

Nice to see that doesn’t always happen.

[Chimera]

Oh my. This guy makes me ashamed to live here (Minnesota). I agree with Dio that the worst part is that his constituents seem to actually support him!

But Minnesota is the land of the extremes. We get far right republicans and far left democrats. The parties can’t quite figure out that no one likes them. That’s how we ended up with Jesse, when the people finally revolted against the two choices we were given. Hell, I voted for Jesse at the last minute, thinking to myself “well, he’s got no shot, but I am not voting for those other a-holes!”

Just look at our two Senators. Dayton and Coleman. Ugh. Almost as embarassing as the NY Senators!

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Hentor the Barbarian said:
I thought that when you found an item like this, you were supposed to work it into a GD thread, with the premise that this represents the entirety or the majority of that political party, and then pose some sort of question pondering how this might influence public perception of that party, or claim future political victories as a result of this for your party. Then when you are called out for your fractured logic and blind devotion, you should dig up some blog cites and have people come to support your reasonable debate style.

Nice to see that doesn’t always happen.

I actually don’t have much of a problem with the other House pubs on this issue. They’ve all been critical of this guy, or at least expressed embarrassment at him. The new Governor, Tim Pawlenty (a moderate Rep) has also come out and condemned Lidnder’s remarks, so I have no beef with him either. It’s not a partisan thing for me (I’m an independent-- albeit a leftie one) it’s just one individual fuckwit that’s needs to be called out.

**Chimera has a point about the schizphrenic nature of our legislature. the Metropolitan area tends to be super liberal while the rural parts of the state are stone-age conservatives. There’s not much in between.