Hate in the Mainstream

“Just like termites, they managed to get some of their people in key positions.”
— DAN RAMOS, chairman of the Bexar County, Texas, Democratic Party, in comments later denounced by the head of the Texas Democratic Party, describing gays inside the Democratic Party in a March 11 interview with the San Antonio Current

“Yup and his mouth is open, his glasses are off, he’s ready, little f-- Jew boy.”
— Schuyler County, Ill., Sheriff DON SCHIEFERDECKER, replying on March 17 to a Facebook comment, “Look, I found a f--,” posted under a picture of one of his co-workers

“[W]e are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.”
— American Family Association official BRYAN FISCHER, in an April 7 blog post on how welfare “destroyed the African-American family” and “incentivized fornication”

“Now you know why no birth certificate.”
— Orange County, Calif., Republican Party Central Committee member MARILYN DAVENPORT, in remarks later condemned by the county GOP chairman, in an April 15 E-mail to friends containing a picture depicting President Obama as a chimpanzee

“And now the Homosexual Lobby is out there spreading wall to wall perversion about ‘cross dressers’ and ‘transvestites.’”
— EUGENE DELGAUDIO, head of the conservative lobbying group Public Advocate of the USA, in an April 26 communication to his followers complaining about activists highlighting a recent attack on a transgender woman

“I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”
— Republican Oklahoma state Rep. SALLY KERN, explaining on April 27 why she thinks a high percentage of prison inmates are black while defending a proposal to end affirmative action in state government

“[I]f someone is attending speeches … promoting the violent overthrow of our government … they should be deported or put in prison.”
— U.S. Sen. RAND PAUL (R-Ky.), in remarks on profiling terror suspects on the May 27 edition of Premiere Radio Network’s “The Sean Hannity Show” that ignored constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly

“They’re aborigines.”
— Republican Alabama state Sen. SCOTT BEASON, referring to black people who go to casinos during a taped conversation with other GOP legislators that was played on June 15 during a corruption trial in which Beason is a government witness

Quotes on this page were compiled from media accounts, web pages, e-mail groups and media matters for america, a group that monitors the far right.