He Seems Nice

[Content Note: Misogyny; rape culture.]

Now that the extreme rightwing of the Republican Party has successfully ousted that liberal rabble-rouser John Boehner, they've got their sites set on a supercool replacement: Florida Representative Daniel Webster, who is affiliated with the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a ministry founded by Bill Gothard, whose name you might recognize from his association with the Duggars.

[University of North Florida professor Julie Ingersoll] writes that Webster's speeches to Gothard's group emphasized that "God is on his side and that God opposes his opponents," even "attribut[ing] the fact that he has often run unopposed to God's intervention as a result of these prayers."

Most controversially, Webster spoke at one IBLP event about the need for wives to submit to their husbands and for husbands to be the heads of their households, which, as Sarah Posner notes, is strongly in line with Gothard's views about the dominance of male authority.

...Last year, Gothard faced accusations of sexual harassment from 34 women and charges that he engineered a cover-up of abuse claims.

And he's the BFF of the favorite choice of Congressional rightwingers to be Speaker of the House.

House Majority Leader and California Representative Kevin McCarthy is still more likely to succeed Boehner, and this is the voting record of the more "moderate" choice. Anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-parental leave, anti-universal healthcare, anti-amnesty, anti-affirmative action, pro-corporation, pro-death penalty, pro-gun, pro-war. And he's not conservative enough for many Congressional Republicans.

They want to go with a guy who believes women are the property of their fathers and/or husbands. In the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fifteen.

I don't even know what to say anymore.