Former Navy chaplain claims that homosexuality can be cured through 'exorcisms'

If you give some members of the religious right a voice and enough room, they tend to make themselves look like fools.

And it's shaping up that David Pakman  is becoming an expert on this.

Pakman, who has interviewed such "luminaries as Peter LaBarbera, Paul Cameron, and Bryan Fischer, has just added another notch in his six-shooter with today's interview with former Navy chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt.

First a little background information on Klingenschmitt. He is another phony religious right cause celebre who claimed that his religious beliefs was causing him to be discriminated against. In this case, he claimed that he was kicked out of the Navy because for simply "praying in Jesus's name."

Of course the actual story, which you can read about here, has less to do with prayer and more to do with his being insubordinate for wearing his uniform at partisan and political events, a big no-no.

Klingenschmitt's past lies pale in comparison to what he said during the interview with Pakman today. He truly brought "the crazy:"



Truth Wins Out gives a small recap:

It starts with a normal human-to-wingnut discussion of DADT repeal, but then the wingnut goes off the rails, completely and thoroughly. Check it: he advocates EXORCISM as the one true way to “cure” homosexuality, and then goes off on a long tangent about how gay men are lying when we say we’re gay, and that saying we’re gay is the same thing as claiming we are women!

This is yet another example of the close correlation between a hatred of gay people and a deep hatred of women, as this sort of statement, from a man who doesn’t strike me as the epitome of “manliness” in the first place, must be taken in the context of their belief that women are inherently inferior. But it’s truly amazing in the year 2011 to hear religious extremists refer to “diseases” being caused by “demons.” Is Klingenschmitt aware of scientific advancement in the past 500 years, or is his Dungeons and Dragons belief system just more important to him than reality?

Also, there is a point where he describes a creepy ceremony he held with a lesbian sailor, but I won’t spoil that fer ya.

Personally, I'm all for gay exorcisms if it is to bring the "spirit of gay" into men and I get to choose who gets my hands "laid upon them."

Of course the sad alternative would be the following: