Brannon Howse: "Remember When We Were Under Martial Law?"

This is the latest post about Brannon Howse's regrettably public existence. You know Brannon, right? He's the guy whose "son" "found" a "porno book" "lying open" in a "Barnes and Noble" and was "horrified" by the "man love" depicted therein. He also "happens" to be "running" for "mayor" of "Rat's Ass, TN," which is "in no way" related to his "misguided crusade" against "reality." He also runs "Christian Worldview Weekend," the online companion to his traveling religious freak show, the "Worldview Weekend" and Code Blue Rallies.

You know, it's not Howse's decision to be a public Christian that gets me. Far from it. It's not the fact that he wants everyone to live up to his personal morality that gets my gopher, to coin an only slightly absurd phrase. What makes Howse a self-perpetuating political sideshow and makes him unqualified for a life public service is the fact that he is willing to force other people to live according to his private morality.

That said, as I have researched this guy, I have found more and more weirdness. Seriously, it's so bad that I have wonder: Is Brannon Howse mentally ill, just kind of high-functioning stupid or a cynical manipulator?

First, I came across evidence that he was unable to discern that Harry Potter was fiction:

Pokemon is not the only recent target of conservative Christians. Most recently, the popular Harry Potter books, which focus on a boy sorceror, have been targeted.

"We ... don't want (children) desensitized to the dark side," said Brannon Howse, institute president. "They may get into other occult ideas, and that leads to these school shootings."

Seriously, he said that fictional stories about a boy wizard leads to school shootings. I mean, sweet tap dancing Jesus. The premise and conclusions are on different planets! Also, I like the fact that by using the phrase "dark side" he is obliquely referencing a popular culture movement that featured magic tricks. Since he is clearly oblivious to this as he uses the phrase, I can assume that he is "desensitized" and may have occult ideas....Now, whose gun was left in the Barnes and Noble really, Brannon?

Then there was the accusation against Barnes and Noble's management that they were orchestrating on some sort of cover up regarding the apparently imaginary confrontation between Howse and an assistant store manager:

Did you really expect B&N employees to keep reporting the truth when it could hurt business or after management got to them?

But for a man who believes in a lot of stupid shit, including his own significance, I thought that
he would be unable to top the assertion that there was a gay predator, or possibly a child molester, lurking in the store:

I believe some homosexual or child predator was trolling and using the book to find a date or victim. The assistant manager told me a young boy had been sexually assaulted in the bathroom at this store and the man was never caught. She also said they had found a gun on the counter in the bathroom on another occasion.

See? Completely out to lunch. Beset by imaginary people out to get him and fondle the members of his family members. Of course, the evidence that people were lurking, for Brannon, is that he didn't see them--See?! See?!

But this was merely the tip of his iceberg of stupid:

Do you remember Y2K? It was a time in our lives when the world was going to come to an end because computer programmers had failed to program computers to distinguish between the years 1900 and 2000. Banks were going to crash! Cities were going to be in flames! Gays were going to marry! This was a perfect opportunity for a young(er) Brannon Howse, already bubbling up with conspiratorial bullshit to go completely overboard.

Writing in the National Liberty Journal, the publication of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University (motto: "Scientia stultus est" or "Knowledge is stupid"), Howse apparently wrote a series of articles about Y2K. One of these was called: "Will President Clinton Take Advantage of Y2K?" Howse speculated that Clinton was poised to declare martial law by means of 11 executive orders which "if invoked, could virtually suspend the U.S. Constitution." (By the way, I am quoting from page 9 of March 1999's Church & State, from an article by Rob Boston called: "Apocalypse Now? How Religious Fear-Mongers Are Exploiting the Y2K Computer Problem for Cash and Political Gain."--I could not find the original Howse articles online, and will have to order them through my library.)

Boston quotes Howse's assertion that the executive orders authorized FEMA

"order the postmaster general to begin a national registration of all residents of the United States for purposes of controlling population movement and relocation. [...] I have personally talked with one U.S. representative that [sic] is very concerned about Clinton's executive orders and the real possibility of martial law. Our fears of the Clinton administration are not unfounded."

"...they are completely unfounded." How'd that martial law go for you, Brannon? The only effect that Y2K had on me was that i got an email dated from the 1960s.

When I say that Brannon Howse is a conspiracy theorist, I'm not exaggerating. He is a dyed-in-the-wool, government-cover-up, we-didn't-go-to-the-moon, fluorinated-water-steals-my-vital-essence-style conspiracy nutjob. He thrives on fear, but whether it is his own or others' (a more sinister prospect) is uncertain.

I have found so many of his truly bizarre leavings scattered throughout the web like so much manure, there will doubtlessly be more to come. I got a couple of articles that have piled up that I will want to get to soon, but, man, this guy is a cornucopia of craziness.

HJ