Bradlee Dean — punk-rocker, youth pastor, antigay activist, ally of ex-gay activist Janet Boynes and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann — took fire from two directions on Monday.
In his home state, GOP Chairman Pat Shortridge warned the St. Cloud State University chapter of College Republicans to cancel its invitation for Dean to perform tonight (April 24). Shortridge appeared less concerned about Dean’s vocal hatred toward gay youth than about the racial and religious smears that Dean has made against President Obama and against non-Christians during a GOP-hosted invocation that Dean gave on the Minnesota House floor.
In the national media, meanwhile, Dean was slammed by MSNBC show host Rachel Maddow, whose attorneys accused Dean of filing frivolous lawsuits for the purpose of suppressing free speech.
Since last year, Dean has been fighting assertions that he supported the conservative Islamic call for extermination of homosexuals.
On his radio show, Dean said the following (courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter):
Muslims are calling for the execution for homosexuals in America, this was just released yesterday and it shows you that they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible, the Judeo Christian God. They seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do. Because these people are livid about enforcing their laws, they know homosexuality is an abomination. And I continually reach out to the homosexual communities on this radio show, and I warn them, which ones love? Here you have Obama condemning it behind the backs of the homosexuals but to their faces he’s promoting it. I say this to my gay friends out there the ones that continuously nitpick everything I say. Hollywood is promoting immorality and the God of the Heavens in Jesus names is warning you to flee from the wrath to come, yet you have Muslims calling for your execution. If America won’t enforce the laws, God will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that’s what you’re seeing in America today. Read Leviticus 26 America.
Maddow quoted this excerpt:
Muslims are calling for the execution for homosexuals in America. … They themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible, the Judeo Christian God. They seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do. Because these people are livid about enforcing their laws, they know homosexuality is an abomination. … If America won’t enforce the laws, God will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that’s what you’re seeing in America today.
Dean then sued Maddow for reporting this statement, despite her subsequent addition of a disclaimer that Dean says he has “never and will never call for the execution of homosexuals.”
