Oklahoma GOP Candidate OK With Stoning Gay People To Death

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A Republican candidate for the Oklahoma state House who boasts that he’s looking forward to “applying Biblical principles to Oklahoma law” is okay with gay people being stoned to death — even if he won’t legislate the practice himself.

MooreDaily.com, a local news website, surfaced a series of Scott Esk’s Facebook posts in a story published Tuesday. The posts, dated July 2013, cited scripture in response to an article on Pope Francis telling reporters “Who am I to judge gay people?”

“Men were commanded to put guilty parties to death who were guilty of certain acts, like homosexuality,” Esk wrote, according to screenshots archived by the news site.

“So just to be clear, you think we should execute homosexuals (presumably by stoning)?” another commenter asked.

“I think we would be totally in the right to do it,” Esk replied. “That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.”

Asked whether he really believed homosexuality ought to be punishable by stoning, Esk told MooreDaily.com that he had “huge moral misgivings” about the behavior but had “no plans to reinstitute [stoning] in Oklahoma law.”

Pressed on whether he’d be okay with legislation permitting stoning of gays if it ever passed, Esk told the news site that he wouldn’t comment on private conversations.

Rob Morris, who spoke with Esk for MooreDaily.com, told local TV station KFOR that he felt voters in Oklahoma’s House District 91 needed to know about Esk’s fringe views.

“Even people that don’t agree with things like gay marriage, they, nobody wants the death penalty for gays,” Morris told KFOR. “I mean that’s the most asinine thing.”

h/t Slate

Image via Scott Esk for OK House District 91

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Notable Replies

  1. How many gunz does he own? This whack-o-bird could well be the poster child for preventing the mentally ill from having access to guns. And he looks so very pleased with himself. I wonder where he worships his gawd?

    My wish for him is for a bushel of chiggers to set up house inside his U-Trau, but he’d probably appreciate the attention down there.

    I swear to whatever Gods are listening at the moment that I am SO damn glad to have left Pokiehoma never to look back.

  2. Here’s your new republican party, America; now, go get stoned everyone . . .

  3. Congratulations, GOP. You built that.

  4. Pretty sure that jacket is a different type material than that tie and shirt.

    Let’s have a stoning!

  5. As a lifelong New Yorker, it’s hard for me to understand how OK can even be part of the US. Having nut jobs walking around saying stuff like that in public - anyone, let alone a candidate - is so foreign to my life’s experience that I can’t even comprehend it. I understand that there are differences in degree, and presumably not everyone in OK feels the same, but how is stoning in the US any different than what goes on in Iran and vicinity? Are we really no better than the governments we deplore?

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