Right-wing psuedo-historian and Republican political operative David Barton recently released an 18-part DVD series called "Foundations of Freedom" that features Barton and various guests explaining everything from "the formation of American law and the judicial system to biblically-based economics, science, government [and how] our Founding Fathers used the Bible as a blueprint for America’s freedoms."
Among the guests featured in the series is Michele Bachmann, who was still a member of Congress at the time of filming, and who, in an episode that recently aired on TBN, declared that LGBT-inclusive hate crimes laws are a form of "tyranny."
"That's what's so brilliant about our form of government and God's form of government," Bachmann said, "that we are equal before the law. God's says He's not a respecter of persons, He's not partial, so why should we, why should government be partial? ... A creator God created us equal."
That discussion eventually led to Barton and Bachmann to lament the passage of hate crimes legislation back in 2009 that included protections against crimes based on sexual orientation, which Bachmann declared was tyranny.
"It's political correctness that rules the day," she said. "So when you're part of a favored group, then you get special benefits that nobody else gets. That's the very form of tyranny because when government supposedly gives something — government has nothing to give, they have to take it away from other people. So when they give it to that certain group, that means, by definition, they're taking it away from you."
The hate crimes law, which Barton and other anti-gay activists falsely claimed would lead to the imprisonment of pastors who preach from the Bible, did not "give" anything to specific groups nor take anything away from anyone else, but merely added sexual orientation and gender identity to other characteristics covered by existing hate crimes statutes, such as gender, race, religion, disability and national origin.
