area delegate goes after "satanic" lawmakers

Fundamentalism and politics becomes a noxious, incoherent mess in Utah County.

While the Utah County government tackles mundane issues like providing police and medical services to the people in the local area or balancing the budgets, delegate Don Larsen is waging the war of the End Times against Satanic forces in the U.S. which are using the Democratic Party as a front to approve anti-family laws. The term anti-family here is one of those umbrella words often used by social conservatives to condemn any law, decision or action they don't like.

According to Larsen, there's an invisible government lead by a cabal of left-wing groups being told by Satan to destroy American families as recorded by the New Testament. Since we all know that what the Beast is really afraid of, is resolutions from local governments, Larsen created one with the catchy title of "Opposing the Hate America anti-Christian Open Borders cabal" to start the first wave of legal resistance to the forces of evil. Unfortunately for this crusader, it was rejected by his peers.

Since this already reads like an article from The Onion, one would think there should be more bizarre details to this story. And there are. Larsen submitted pretty much the same thing at a 2007 convention, showing that he's at least consistently paranoid, regardless of the party in power. In defense of his resolution, he offers that illegal immigrants and "people from dysfunctional families" are the ones casting most of their votes for Democrats and giving us a complete package of xenophobia and self- righteous evaluation of voters' family lives in one short, convenient soundbyte.

All that's missing is a quote from Revelations and a stern warning for all those heathens voting for Satan's party about spending eternity in a lake of fire. In summation, what we have here is someone with a rather tenuous grasp of reality at best, using his position as a delegate to a local government in the middle of Utah as a launching ground for a crusade which will challenge the forces of evil as personified by immigrants and liberals.

Although his resolution was defeated by other Republican delegates, not one of them said that it was a crazy proposition based on religious fanaticism and a pious indictment of those with more liberal worldviews. Not one of them questioned why rather than going about his business of providing the services that the taxpayers of his town need, Larsen is wasting time and money on indulging his personal whims.

And not one of them pointed out that such resolutions are further proof that basing one's government on Biblical verses is a really bad idea since it would allow amateur theologians eagerly anticipating Armageddon to challenge anything a democratically elected government does because they think they're right in their reading of thick allegories of ancient history.

Instead, they focused on the importance of the Latino vote in elections and how the party just couldn't afford to anger immigrants and expect to be a majority. Well, maybe that's a start. The GOP already recognizes the power of Latino voters and next, they might start to realize that they can't afford to anger moderates by giving power to conspiracy theorists who see socialism or Satanism behind every new or different idea.

After that, they might recognize that scientists are actually smart people who know what they're talking about and that using the word "family" as an instrument for a hackneyed, verbal bludgeoning isn't a good idea either. Maybe they'll also reconsider using inflammatory pundits who's living consists of delivering far-right talking points and marketing outrage to millions. But then again, if how the GOP has been handling their defeat at the polls last November is any indication of what they want to do with their party in the future, I wouldn't wait with bated breath…