Oh, GOP. It’s just unfathomable to me how anyone—let alone an entire BUNCH OF DUDES—could be so bad at not being the worst. It’s impressive, really. The latest: Virginia state senator Dick Black has begun a run for congress to replace retiring GOP moderate Frank Wolf. In response, Mother Jones has put together a sort of “greatest hits” profile of all the mindblowingly shitty stuff Black has said over the years.
Call me new-fashioned, but I’m just not sure that a dude who thinks spousal rape shouldn’t be illegal if “she’s in a nightie” deserves to get a promotion. And, you know, MAKE LAWS.
Also on Black’s resume:
Black has referred to emergency contraception, which does not cause abortions, as “baby pesticide.” Black also fought to block a statue of Abraham Lincoln at a former Confederate site in Richmond. He wasn’t sure, he explained at the time, that statues of Lincoln belonged in Virginia. He has argued that abortion is a worse evil than slavery. And once, to demonstrate why libraries should block pornography on their computers, Black invited a TV reporter to film him using a library terminal to watch violent rape porn.
…For two years in a row, Black introduced legislation requiring women younger than 18 to provide a notarized note from a parent before having an abortion. To justify the bill, he said abortion was a greater evil than segregation or slavery. In 2005, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch, he promoted a bill that would have required abortion providers to tell women that a fetus being aborted 20 weeks after conception may be able to feel pain, a medically unsupported claim. Black sent senators plastic figures of fetuses with a letter asking, “Would you kill this child?” as a Senate committee prepared to vote on the bill.
BABY PESTICIDE, YOU GUYS. Say what you want, dude does know how to turn a phrase.
Anyway, uh, don’t vote for this guy.
GET JEZEBEL RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
