Well, it pretty much stands to reason that if Ted Nugent is Rosa Parks and the sacred fight against all gun control is the new civil rights movement, then the Multnomah Republican Party should celebrate Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln by raffling off an AR-15 rifle (or a handgun of the winner’s choice) at their February 15 Lincoln Day Dinner…. For some reason, a lot of people found the announcement of the raffle and fundraising dinner — with its line about honoring “two great Republicans” — to be lacking in taste somehow, despite the documented fact that both King and Lincoln gave their lives in the struggle to ensure that no one at a gun show ever face a background check or a limit on the size of their ammunition magazine.
Sometimes, the Internet works in wondrous ways, and it can be a thing of beauty to behold. Yesterday, I wrote a post ridiculing the Multnomah County GOP for selling raffle tickets for their annual Lincoln Day dinner. The plan was to raffle off an AR-15, and they were using Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln as the personification of their devotion to the 2nd Amendment. The fact that both were killed by madmen bearing firearms seems to have been lost on the moral midgets running the Multnomah County GOP. Somehow it never dawned on those behind the raffle that some folks might just take offense at such an insensitive and inappropriate raffle. Then again, Republicans have never had any problem with co-opting those who’d have nothing to do with their hateful, insensitive agenda.
Then the Internet got ahold of this news…and all Hell broke loose. The dinner, which was to be held at a Greek Orthodox Church a mile from my home, created enough of an uproar that the Church pulled the welcome mat out from under the GOP. All that was left for the Multnomah County GOP was the damage control. In true Republican fashion, they did everything with the blame except what they should have: accepted it as their own. Accept responsibility? Why would you do that when you can blame those gun-grabbing Libruls?
Chuck Currie, a United Church of Christ minister and longtime political activist, said he was among those urging Holy Trinity not to allow its facilities to be used for the Republican event.
“You don’t honor a minister who preached non-violence by auctioning off the same kind of weapon used in the mass killings of children” at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., said Currie, who wrote a column on the subject for the Huffington Post.
Multnomah Republican Chairman Jeff Reynolds on Thursday issued a “clarification” saying that the raffle would be held separately from the fundraising dinner. On Friday, he said he received notice from the church that it would no longer rent space to the party for the event….
“We’re going to be fine,” he said, refusing to discuss what reason the church gave for cancelling on the GOP. He did add, however, that “candidly, this is what Republicans face in Multnomah County” where voters lean heavily to Democratic candidates.
Candidly, this is what happens when Republicans decide that collectively being a jackass is their birthright and that they can and should be able to do as they see fit. After all, they’re Republicans, right? If they want to do something reasonable people might view as offensive and inappropriate…well, they’re not Republicans, so who really cares what they think, amiright??
Of course, in typical Republican fashion, Reynolds is playing the victim card. The “this is what Republicans face in Multnomah County” is as ignorant and self-pitying as it is self-serving and impotent. What Republicans face in Multnomah County is an electorate smart enough not to fall for Republican lies and propaganda.
When asked if it was a mistake to tie the raffle to Lincoln and King — who historians say did not identify himself as a Republican — Reynolds replied: “I’m not going to go there today.”
It’s not offensive enough that Reynolds sees nothing inappropriate about using Lincoln and King’s legacies to justify raffling off an AR-15. It’s not repulsive enough that he portrayed the raffle in a way that ignores the fact that firearms killed both Lincoln and King. No, Reynolds has to play the victim when his plans generate a good deal of well-placed outrage. Like too many Republicans, Reynolds seems to suffer from a severe deficit of simple human decency. His self-righteous attempt at justifying the raffle is both offensive and truly pathetic.
With any luck, the Multnomah County GOP will be reduced to holding their Lincoln Day dinner at a choke-and-puke in Enterprise, just this side of the middle of nowhere. They’ll no doubt raffle off their AR-15 and hold it up as indicative of their commitment to protecting their inalienable, unalterable, and sacrosanct 2nd Amendment rights. Except that no one’s talking about taking away their precious gun “rights.” This isn’t about getting rid of the 2nd Amendment; it’s about Republican cluelessness, insensitivity, and mean-spiritedness when it comes to elevating gun rights over any and all other rights.
It’s about ignoring the offensive nature of using the legacies of two American heroes who were killed by firearms. Then again, this has nothing to do with life, nor the sanctity of it. When you value guns over any and all other considerations, this is what you get. If Jeff Reynolds was anything resembling smart of politically savvy, he’d understand that…but it’s evidently far easier and more satisfying playing the victim.
Here’s a suggestion for Reynolds: Get over yourself, willya? You’re as tiresome as you are pitiful.
