Montgomery GOP Offering Peroutka Class Again
It's nearly Sisyphean for a Republican to win there, and yet the Montgomery County Republican Party apparatus thinks it is helpful to associate themselves with radical kooks with extremist ties.
You may remember last year when the Montgomery County Republican Party was promoting Micahel Peroutka’s candidacy for Attorney General by bringing his outfit in for a “Class on the Constitution.”
Well, Montgomery County is doing it again:
Rare Opportunity!! The long-awaited Maryland Constitution Class is coming to Montgomery County.
Meet the ONLY Maryland Constitution Course taught In Maryland, including all Maryland law schools! WATCH THE VIDEO HERE>
What you will learn from this course:
The Constitutional Limitations on Maryland's Civil Government
How to Hold State Officials Accountable to Their Sworn Oath
How You Can Get Involved With Government At A Local Level
Peroutka’s Institute on the Constitution has always been on the fringe of the fringe of Maryland politics. But a lot has happened since the last time the Montgomery County GOP got in bed with Peroutka. Like Peroutka attending a QAnon conference. Or Peroutka getting shellacked in the General Election and then refusing to concede.
As we reminded you last year, the Institute on the Constitution is Rousas Rushdoony, is the founder of Christian Reconstructionism. Rushdoony’s writings and views are plastered all over the IOTC website.
The IOTC website directs readers to this 1988 interview Rushdoony did with Bill Moyers.
Here’s a transcript of the relevant portion.
Moyers: You’ve written that the Bible calls for the death penalty, and I’m just running down a variety of things as you can see. You’ve written that the Bible calls for the death penalty of some 15 crimes: rape, sodomy, adultery.
Rushdoony: Adultery because in the Bible the basic institution is the family. There’s no law of treason against the state. The Bible doesn’t even imagine anything remotely like that. But the basic institution is the family. And so, several of the death penalties are associated with the family and its life.
Moyers: So adultery was considered a theft of the family.
Rushdoony: It was, yes, it was treason to the family.
Moyers: Homosexuality.
Rushdoony: Yes, it was treason to the family.
Moyers: Worthy of the death sentence?
Rushdoony: What?
Moyers: Worthy of the death sentence?
Rushdoony: Yes.Moyers: Deserving of the death sentence?
Rushdoony: Yes, that’s what Paul says.
…
Moyers: But you would re-instate the death penalty for some of these or all of these Biblical crimes?
…Moyers: But you would re-instate the death penalty for some of these or all of these Biblical crimes?Rushdoony: I wouldn’t—
Moyers: But the reconstructive society–
Rushdoony: I’m saying that this is what God requires. I’m not saying that everything in the Bible, I like. Some of it rubs me the wrong way. But I’m simply saying, this is what God requires. This is what God says is justice. Therefore, I don’t feel I have a choice.
Moyers: And the agents of God would carry out the laws.
Rushdoony: The civil government would, on these things.
Moyers: So you would have a civil government, based upon–
Rushdoony: Oh yes. I’m not an anarchist. I’m close to being a libertarian. But–
Moyers: But the civil law would be based on the biblical law. And so you’d have a civil government carrying out a religious mandate.
Rushdoony: Oh yes.
The father of the IOTC’s core philosophy believes in a civil government who’s first duty is to carry out a religious mandate to do what God requires as written in the Old Testament, including executions for adulterers and homosexuals.
The Institute on the Constitution also has had ties with the secessionist, white nationalist League of the South. Peroutka was either appointedor elected to the League of the South’s Board of Directors in 2013. A Google search does return a dead link titled“League of the South Board of Directors: Michael Peroutka”
However, here is a video of Peroutka speaking at the League of the South’s annual convention, thanking its president Michael Hill and board members for his appointment/election and pledging the resources of the IOTC and the Peroutka family to the League of the South.
On its FAQ page The League of the South says in part that its mission is “to advance the cultural, social, economic, and political well-being and independence of the Southern people by all honourable means,” through legal secession. The League also seeks to protect the “Anglo-Celtic core population and culture of the South”
Should that not be enough to convince you of what the League of the South stands for, here is League president Michael Hill in his own words:
The survival, well being, and independence of the Southern people. And by “the Southern people,” we mean White Southerners who are not afraid to stand for the people of their race and region. In other words, we understand what it is to be an historic “nation”–a specific people with a unique culture living on a particular piece of land. And, God willing, we shall one day have a name and place among the nations of the earth.”
The absolute last thing Republicans in Maryland need is to have open ties to radical extremism. Yet this is exactly what the Montgomery County Republican Party is doing. Associating themselves with the IOTC would be bad enough in a vacuum, but Montgomery County is uniquely situated in that it is among the most challenging counties for a Republican to win. Republicans, bluntly, have been getting their asses kicked across the county for twenty-five years. It is a nearly Sisyphean task for a Republican to win in the county, and yet the County Party apparatus thinks it is helpful to associate themselves with radical kooks with extremist ties.
The Montgomery County Republican Party is doing a disservice to all of the county’s 97,225 Republican voters.