IN a statement that has outraged advocates of the disabled, Virginia state delegate Bob Marshall claimed that disabled children are “special punishment” for women who have abortions, particularly in their first pregnancy.
Bob Marshall
Marshall recently co-sponsored the infamous Virginia anti-gay-marriage amendment, which prompted Virginia Log Cabin Republicans President David Lampo to say:
Marshall is just, I think, an awful person and just an embarrassment to the Republican Party.
In a story first reported in the Gainesville Times, he made the statement to a group of clergy gathered at the Virginia General Assembly building to oppose perceived government funding for Planned Parenthood, a national family planning organisation that permits the performance of abortions at its facilities. Writing for Examiner.com, Charles McAlpin points out that, although audio of the whole discussion is not available, Marshall did not clarify his remarks for several days. It seems safe to assume, therefore, that none of the clergy present that day voiced objection to his statement that:
The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.
Marshall tried to clarify his remarks later, telling a Washington NBC station that his remarks had been taken out of context. Further explaining on his website that his earlier words had been poorly chosen, Marshall said that he did not believe any children were divine punishment.
A story by Capital News Service regarding my remarks at a recent press conference opposing taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood conveyed the impression that I believe disabled children are a punishment for prior abortions. No one who knows me or my record would imagine that I believe or intended to communicate such an offensive notion…
McAlpin said:
To be clear, Marshall did not say that any god had singled out the children of women who had undergone abortions. According to Marshall’s words, it was “nature” who did the deed, even if nature was acting according to the Old Testament. The implication is that Marshall applies the hair-splitting reasoning that God did not directly punish these children, but that their suffering was a consequence of the abortions their mothers had in prior pregnancies.
In essence, it’s a distinction without a difference if one believes in divine intervention. Whether Marshall’s deity smote the children himself or simply refused to intervene on behalf of the children, the result is effectively the same. (He offered no explanation for what sins explain disabilities that result when mothers have not aborted an earlier pregnancy.)
If they are to have integrity, those believers who think everything happens for a reason should be unapologetic about it. Blame gays for society’s problems, parents for their children’s illnesses, and civil libertarians for 9/11, and do it in the name of belief. Anything else is false advertising. Or…perhaps they could consider that sometimes things just happen, through no fault of anyone’s but the laws of physics.
Hat Tip Alan H
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
February 25th, 2010 at 10:17 am
They have some authentic monsters in the USA. Warped, perverted and viciously cruel beyond the imagining of the ordinary person. That round, weak face, sickly rictus of a smile with the usual smug and carefully posed “I am one hell of a person.” ion There is something diseased about people like this and I mean a moral disease, a corruption of all decency as a result of the rotteness which results from his beliefs.
February 25th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Unfortunately, Marshall is not unique or even a rara avis in Virginia state politics. He’s rather more obtuse and outspoken than some others but he represents a sizable number of religion-struck rednecks here in the “old dominion”…..and he’s not just an embarassment to the rethuglicans…..but if you want real smug look at eric cantor, one of our leading republicans in the congress – now he’s really scary!!
February 25th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
i’m so glad i’m not american.
February 25th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
If you can stomach it, below is a clip on YouTube of the hateful twat spouting off about ‘god’s special punishment’.
By the way, he also said this about abortion in the case of rape: “[T]he woman becomes a sin-bearer of the crime, because the right of a child predominates over the embarrassment of the woman.”
Grrrrrr!!!!! Give me just five minutes with him in a room with no windows…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VODxVQcF_yw
February 25th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Brother Bob is only stating The Word of God.
Even modern day false Bibles give warning about disobeying HIM.
Deuteronomy 28:14-28
Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.
However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.
The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
God Bless
February 25th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Thanks for the references to even more “scary” and loathsome twats. Now guys, call me gutless if you choose, but I am going to postpone those viewings until I have a large malt whisky in my fist. There is only so much a tender minded atheist such as myself is able to take at one time.
February 25th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Hey Broga. Make that a quadruple and then check out more on this story here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn.....g_unsu.php
February 25th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Amen, Broga.
I really don’t know what is left to say. It has all been said and apparently these people are impervious to reason and logic, and even humanity.
February 25th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
This man helps run our lives, you’ll all be comforted to know.
February 25th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
http://ovo127.com/2010/02/23/c.....unishment/
More on the moron, including the Bible verses that show he wasn’t perverting the lovely religion but that the religion is sick and his crime was mentioning the verses one isn’t supposed to mention.
February 25th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
And people wonder why our schools are failing. With complete bastards like this in the state legislature, what kind of role models do the kids have? Science, art, philosophy, none of these things is perfect anywhere, but we have a large (larger than most realize) group of people in this country not only unconcerned with these subjects, but actively attempting to undermine the efforts of the teachers. Kids hear one thing at school about biology, then their parents tell them twattle like this and it can undo an entire section of learning.
This guy just needs to end his own life, for the rest of our sakes.
February 25th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2.....sh_priest/
One for you BarryD.
February 25th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Well-godlesssodamite- I would say the same except these brainless morons ARE EVERYWHERE!!!!
U-got the islamics trying to take over england along with the WooWoo masters.
The xtians are still trying to kill each other in N.Ireland, islam-Xtains are fighting it out in malaysia, the hindu-xtian-islam are fighting it out in far east. Africa has their dumb-schite witch hunts. I’m sorry I’m a Terran!!!
With stupid this gigantic, I feel so disconnected that it makes me wonder if some of us with a brain bigger than a cockroach aren’t a lost colony from somewhere else???
February 25th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Too bad that most, if not all, bigots are usually straight; without a cull we’ll never get rid of them, they just keep on breeding.
February 25th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Where’d my post disappear to?! Anyway, I think it said something like this:
Hey Broga. Make it a quadruple and then read more about the sad, sick, brain-dead excuse for human being here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn.....g_unsu.php
By the way, how are you enjoying God Hates You?
Marcus.
(What’s the betting my missing post turns up right in front of this one!!)
February 25th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
I don’t comment often on blogs…but…I agree with Marcus even though deep inside we know it’s vengence speaking. It seems to me that more and more of these hate-mongering xtians are getting more vocal as their counterparts, the Teabaggers, become more active. It’s a fear invested time bomb of undereducated bigots ready to explode. Can’t we vote these scum out? Are there that many of them that vote, and this continues to grow? The future looks bleak.
February 25th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
@rog Little bit harsh, there, rog on the priest. What he lacked was the right explanation and the sufficiently gullible/moronic/illiterate followers and he would have been forgiven. These morons exist in the good old USA like fleas on a mangy dog. There the preachers have shagged their secretaries; stolen millions of dollars from the church funds; helped themselves to money contributed to charities; had gay relationships while preaching against this sinful behaviour (I merely ruffle the surface of their depravities, of course) and then asked forgiveness. You see the problem lay with the devil who tempted them; they have seen the light; it will never happen again; they are better men (always men) for their suffering.
The amazing aspect of this is that with performances that should be awarded an Oscar; weeping and howling for forgivness; turning it on in a way that leaves Elmer Gantry looking like an amateur con man they actually do get away with it. And rumour has it that this TV evangelism may soon be reaching a TV station near you in the UK.
February 25th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
CybrgnX, A colleague at work expresses the exact same sentiment when confronted with industrial strength stupidity either in the news or among our customers. The stupidity sometimes seems to be so prevelant that he suggests that we are some kind of freaks in that our IQ exceeds our shoe size.
February 25th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Not only is this slime everything Broga said, he’s a damned liar. All that crap about punishment was his way of explaining the “dramatic increase in handicapped children”, and it doesn’t fucking exist. I’ve been fighting on some christian websites with his supporters, and no one has been able to come up with where he pulled this statistic out of.
PS; it bothers me that here in Der Homeland (former USA) even though a lot of people are outraged about his non-existent morals, nobody is calling for him to back up his claim with facts. Probably this fantasy “increase” of his will become a fundy talking point, along with fetuses in trash cans.
February 25th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
@ Marcus. Many thanks. Yup, I have read them all now and these guys are as morally diseased and ethically corrupt as you are likely to find. They really do live beyond the far margins that any society with pretensions to being civilised would accept. No question they stain any group, religion, cult that in any way associates with them. What I also note is how quick these unprincipled cowards backtrack and run for cover when the opposition rises against them. With no principles, no values they have nothing only a sick pursuit of what they think will meet support from people of like mind.
I like “God Hates You; Hate him back.” Had some fun with the information in that with the fundies.
February 25th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Marcus:
When you’ve done with him, mate, I want the next 5 mins, deal? Bring a mop, please.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:35 am
@ Chris. One large mop coming right up!
February 26th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
The really appalling thing is that somewhere in some church in Virginia, some teenage girl with inadequate sex education is going to be told this and she’ll think it’s true. Then when she gets pregnant by accident she’ll be scared to get an abortion and she’ll get married to the bum, etc, etc…or else she’ll get an abortion and think she can never have kids again.