RALPH Shortey is an Oklahoma state senator who this week got himself branded as “hilariously delusional” after he tabled bill that would ban the use of aborted human foetuses in food products.
According to this report, the ridiculous Republican and ardent Christian pro-lifer said he filed the bill after reading that an anti-abortion group – Children of God for Life – had called on the public to boycott products of several major food companies.
Wingnut Sen Ralph Shortey is 'hilariously delusional'
COGFL claimed that the companies had partnered with a biotech enterprise that produces artificial flavour enhancers. One corporation, PepsiCo did partner with food product development company Senomyx to develop a new low-calorie sweetener, but Pepsico denied using foetal tissue in its research in an April 2011 email to Children of God for Life.
In this report, Shortey was quoted as saying:
As a pro-life advocate, it kind of disturbed me that we would use aborted embryos or aborted human fetuses to extract stem cells and use them for research to basically make things taste better.
He admitted that he had never heard of any instances of this happening, but decided that his bill would, at the very least, give any food companies toying with the idea an “ultimatum.”
The legislation, known as SB 1418, states:
No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.
Federal food safety officials have never heard of such a thing happening. A US Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman said that the agency has never received any reports of foetuses being used in food production.
Shortey, elected in 2010, has introduced a spate of dottyl bills including denying Oklahoma citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in the state. Another bill he concocted would have allowed police to confiscate the homes and cars of illegal immigrants. He also tried to advance a bill that would have required presidential candidates to provide proof of citizenship before being allowed on Oklahoma’s primary ballot.
None of Shortey’s controversial bills have become law.
As news began circulating of his latest legislative priority, the Twitterverse erupted with disbelief and amusement.
One person wrote:
This may conflict with my dream of eating aborted fetus dumplings, but Sen Ralph Shortey is hilariously delusional.
Another said:
Today in Oklahoma crazy: Sen Ralph Shortey (R) proposes banning ‘human fetuses in food’. Didn’t know it was a thing.
Hat tip: Buffy
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 27th, 2012 at 10:01 am
Maybe he’s confusing the embryos used in stem cell research with the aborted babies we have at our atheist barbecues. Mmmm they taste sooo good.
January 27th, 2012 at 10:26 am
Maybe he watched the J-Horror flick Dumplings. While off his head on controlled drugs.
What a complete mental defective.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:08 am
Is this Shortey guy an atheist infiltrator on a mission to undermine American Christianity from its moronic interior? Indeed, are half the GOP candidates for the presidency there to make atheism more attractive to Americans? We should be told…
January 27th, 2012 at 11:23 am
I admit to not understanding how US ‘democracy’ works, but when I see stories like this, I suspect it doesn’t.
Somehow this tool managed to get a majority of votes in an election, simply amazing. What is even scarier, I know he is not an exeption – Palin, O’Donell, Bachman, Santorum, Perry, etc.
Australia may have its own crazies in politics, but at least nearly all of us know who they are, and none can hold a candle to this bloke.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:23 am
Remigious, are you part of some sort of splinter group?
True AtheistsTM eat only babies, foetus meat is simply not the same.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:27 am
The stupid boy’s got it all wrong: it’s placentas they use. Always have done, in the backwoods.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:45 am
@ stargreaves
I’ve seen that film it’s pretty fucked up.
Maybe he did see that or he saw that episode of south park with christopher reeve.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:52 am
@cnocspeiraeg. Try it. You haven’t lived ’til you’ve eaten someone who hasn’t lived.
Placenta pancetta. Mmmm.
January 27th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
I heart America, but for every PZ Myers there seem to about 50 nutjobs. Many of them in politics.
January 27th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Shortey in name, shorty in brain cells.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Sen. Shortey has magic powers. He cast a spell over an invisible monster that lives in the sky (colloquially known as “prayer”) and presto! His wife and child lived through a difficult birth. Sen. Shortey thanked the sky monster by attempting to legislate a ban on abortion (?) but failed to ask why the sky monster caused the difficult birth in the first place, or why his baby is okay but 1,200+ each year die in the same situation. His magic powers must be strong!
And now, by law, no one may eat his baby. Sen. Shortey must not have read his Bible lately. God loves cannibalism.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
……”Soylent green is people”…
the rate religion is overpopulating the planet, it could even happen.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Just when you think that these people simply cannot get any more mental than they already are, along comes this guy to prove you wrong. It remains to be seen whether he has committed electoral suicide with this wheeze or if there are thousands of US voters saying ‘well I think we do need a law cause I for one wouldn’t put it past them’.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Yeh this is just nuts. I’m pretty sure there’s ALREADY a law against feeding people meat to people. It’s called cannibalism and you don’t have to be pro-life to be revolted by the thought.
Seriously, RALPH Shortey lives on planet nut-case.
January 27th, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Update on an earlier story:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012.....-his-life/
Also, Mark Thompson is leaving the BBC. Good news first – for Broga’s benefit – but guess who’s going to find a replacement for him? (Clue: Hong Kong Phooey.)
January 27th, 2012 at 6:32 pm
barriejohn. Are you suggesting that the next DG of the BBC will be the mild mannered janitor?
January 27th, 2012 at 6:38 pm
OT Jesus and Mo have just lost the vote at LSESU.
http://www.lsesu.com/news/article/6001/761/
January 27th, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Union resolves
1. To define Islamophobia as “a form of racism expressed through the hatred or fear of Islam,
Muslims, or Islamic culture, and the stereotyping, demonisation or harassment of Muslims,
including but not limited to portraying Muslims as barbarians or terrorists, or attacking the
Qur’an as a manual of hatred”,
Guess everyone with a brain is now an islamophope.As to portraying the qur’an as a manual of hate, its real use is here..
http://plancksconstant.org/blo.....quran.html
January 27th, 2012 at 8:17 pm
Most of you are fortunate to live far away from the USA.
Here in Canada …right next door….we have t live alongside these crazy people.
Quite often what they get up to is funny indeed ….but this is partly scary.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Okay, yes, Islamophobia, as in Daily Mail style branding of all Muslims, blah blah blah… Yep, that’s a bad thing, and often covers an underlying racist agenda.
But.
Criticism of Islam does not automatically come under the heading of Islamophobia. If they’re going to tell LSE ASH not to do certain things, they need first to look at whether ASH members are actually partaking in Islamophobia (which any bloody fool can see they aren’t doing), or merely exercising freedom of speech and their right to criticise the religion.
This looks to me like a case, partly of cowardice; not wanting to rile the Muslims, and partly a bunch of officious, self-aggrandising little gits wanting to stamp their own authority on anything within reach.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Daz. It’s political correctness gone mad.
Oops. Sorry. That was racist.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:54 pm
remigius
Nah, ablist. The term you’re looking for is ‘stark raving bonkers.’* The way you phrased it, you’re unfairly besmirching actual mad people.
*AKA Peter Hitchens Syndrome.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:50 pm
He’s from Oklahoma, home of Sally Kern. That’s one of the states where they prefer to elect mentally deranged people to public office rather than send them to the asylums.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:51 pm
Yummmmmmmmmmy! can I get mine barbecued, with a little Duck Sauce?
January 28th, 2012 at 12:21 am
‘…a little Duck Sauce.’
Duckling sauce. Mmmm.
January 28th, 2012 at 12:42 am
I’m surprised he’s not a front-runner for the Republican nomination. He out-stupids all the other candidates.
January 28th, 2012 at 2:20 am
Pete H
Oh, I dunno about that. There’s so many to choose from. (Okay, he’s not actually a nomination, but still…)
January 28th, 2012 at 2:23 am
‘Nomination’? Nominee. I really miss the edit window.
January 28th, 2012 at 7:55 am
Daz: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
[Homosexuals] do not naturally reproduce. It has not been proven that it is nature. It happens in nature, but so does beastiality (sic).
Yeah – foxes copulating with foxes. How perverted is that?
January 28th, 2012 at 10:04 am
but can we still eat puppies?
January 28th, 2012 at 11:59 am
Re LSE: I see that 542 students have turned out to vote on whether to commit the Union to stop beating its wives. Out of a projected 9000 in 2012. Says it all. It was just the same when I was a student – the bulk of students and the political few went around in almost complete ignorance of each other, with the occasional shudder of mutual revulsion when either did happen to notice the other.
http://www.timeshighereducatio.....ioncode=26