Watergate Crook, Anti-Gay Preacher Chuck Colson Bites It Dies At 80

We’re contractually obligated to say the loss of any human life is a tragedy, but we’re not exactly crying a river over the death on Saturday of Chuck Colson, a chief figure in the Watergate scandal who had a jailhouse conversion and emerged as a virulently anti-LGBT preacher. He was 80.

Colson—who died from complications resulting from a brain hemorrhage in late March—was President Nixon’s hatchet man, known for pulling all kinds of shenanigans on behalf of Tricky Dick. (He once said her would “walk over his grandmother” to get the President re-elected.)

In 2009, Colson co-authored the infamous Manhattan Declaration, which attacked birth outside wedlock, homosexuality and abortion, and demanded signatories to agree to break the law if it contradicted Scripture.  When the APA declared so-called reparative therapy unethical, Colson compared the group to the Nazis, saying, “If you didn’t conform to the government’s point of view, you risked losing your job. That is what’s happening in the world of psychology today.” Earlier this year Colson was included in GLAAD’s new Commentator Accountability Project (CAP), which alerts news outlets about notoriously homophobic pundits.

The New Civil Rights Movement shares some lovely information about Colson’s crusades against us Sodomites:

Colson repeatedly attacked same-sex marriage and homosexuality. He wrongly stated “homosexual behavior” is more “dangerous than smoking, it lowers the life expectancy dramatically.” Colson also falsely stated that legalizing same-sex marriage was “sanctioning behavior known to be dangerous.” And, again falsely, stated that gays and lesbians “don’t want marriage; they want their sexual choices affirmed as normal and moral.”

And as late as last year, despite years of research to the contrary, Colson was publicly advocating that homosexuality was both a choice and avoidable if parents “properly” raised their children. Colson pointed to the book “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality,” as the way to “learn more about what parents can do to lessen the chances their children will grow up homosexual.”

On his website, a statement claims that “Colson won the respect of those who disagreed with his religious and political views thanks to his tireless work on behalf of prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families.”

Excuse us? We’re not relishing the man turning into worm food (well, maybe a little) but we certainly didn’t respect him. Rest in pieces, Chuck.

Photo: Chris Greenberg