Wow this Stephanie Mencimer piece at Mother Jones. I don’t care all that much that one of Ed Blum’s Evenwel plaintiffs believes in unicorns. But this is much more disturbing:
Evenwel is an outspoken critic of illegal immigrants, and she has claimed on the Titus County GOP’s website that the state’s present legislative boundary-drawing process has the primary objective of giving “equal representation to a block of undocumented people who are not eligible or registered to vote.” Evenwel has also lashed out at Muslims, warning in an op-ed that showing tolerance to them means that Shariah law could “usurp the US Constitution.” And she has claimed that all money donated to mosques funds jihad.
Her co-plaintiff, Ed Pfenninger, has expressed some equally eyebrow-raising views. A Christian fundamentalist who works as a security guard in Porter, Texas, Pfenninger operates a YouTube channel where he’s posted hours of videos of himself expounding on his beliefs. For instance, he’s described the Catholic Church as “the Mother of Harlots.” He’s also said that Jews are “enemies of the cross,” and that God created Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust because he “wanted the Jews back into the Land.” Pfenninger also cites the Bible to justify his belief that women with short hair are somehow shameful….
By Blum’s own standards, though, Evenwel and Pfenninger may fall short as model plaintiffs. Blum, who says he’s known Pfenninger for 15 years, was unfamiliar with Pfenninger’s views on science and was outraged at any suggestion that he should have vetted his plaintiff’s religious beliefs. “These are civil rights cases. I don’t need to quiz everyone about their views on climate change, evolution, or global warming. I just need to know that someone is not a bigot. If Ed Pfenninger is not a bigot, a racist, or a homophobe or an anti-Semite, then he will fall within my purview as a legitimate client.”
In fact, Pfenninger has written and said a number of things over the years on his YouTube channel disparaging gays and Jews. In 2010, he told one commenter that in the Bible, “homosexuality is condemned as a ‘vile affection’ (Rom.1:26) and that is a universal, eternal, unchanging truth.” He’s referred to gays as “sodomites” and has said homosexuality is a “perversion” akin to incest.
When I directed Blum to inflammatory statements made by Pfenninger and Evenwel, he replied via email with a short statement. “I remain persuaded that my clients are not bigots, racists, or anti Semites.”