Isn’t that nice. As C&L’s Dave Neiwart has pointed out again and again and again, Jerry Boykin is a right-wing nutjob of the most dangerous kind. The fact that he’s been hired by the Family Research Council underlines their own extreme positions:
The conservative Family Research Council has named a former top Delta Force commando and outspoken culture warrior, retired Army Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, to run its day-to-day operations.
Boykin’s appointment as executive vice president of the FRC, a mainstay of the Christian right, is designed in part to highlight conservative opposition to President Obama’s military policies, particularly his decision last year to repeal the Pentagon’s ban against gays and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces.
“The Obama administration has undermined our nation’s security and increased the risk to those who serve by systematically using our nation’s military to advance a liberal social agenda,” FRC President Tony Perkins said in announcing Boykin’s appointment on July 16.
“There is no one better equipped to speak on behalf of those who serve our nation in uniform and advocate for policies that uphold our national security than General Boykin.”
Boykin’s presence at the FRC is also likely to spotlight his many controversial statements about Islam.
Boykin first came to national attention in 2003 when it was revealed that the decorated battlefield veteran then serving as a top adviser at the Pentagon under President George W. Bush regularly told church audiences that the post-9/11 “war on terror” was a spiritual battle between Muslims and “Christian America.”
In one talk, Boykin recounted how he pursued a Muslim warrior in Somalia who claimed he had Allah on his side. “I knew that my God was bigger than his,” Boykin told the church in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 2002. “I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
