18.2 - Clown Award: Minister Kenneth Adkins

Clown Award: Minister Kenneth Adkins

Next up, the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity. And this week we had what can only be called a cavalcade of clowns.

I thought of going for the obvious and giving the Clown Award to presidential mouthpiece and Melissa McCarthy impersonator Sean Spicer for his observation that Hitler never used gas on his own people - but you know what, everybody got him for that and I wanted to pick a less-painfully obvious target.

The next possibility was another one that you may already know about. It arises from the fact that "InStyle" magazine used a picture of Amy Schumer in a one-piece swimsuit for its May cover.

Swimsuit designer Dana Duggan took offense at that, tweeting "You could not find anyone better for this cover? Not everyone should wear a bathing suit."

After she got major flak for that trash talk, she ran behind the "It's my freedom of speech" defense. Yeah, Ms. Duggan, but what people like you seem always to forget is yes, you have freedom of speech - but so do we. So quit your whining.

But what makes this especially clownish is that Duggan, who admits she doesn't use plus-size models, said Schumer should not be on the cover, should not be in a swimsuit, that it's a matter of "beauty," and that she's "tired of the media and publications trying to push the FAT agenda," which is "not pretty and not healthy," all while insisting that she was not fat-shaming anyone.

Amy Schumer cover

Dana Duggan

Yeah, well, Dana Duggan, I'm not a particular fan of Amy Schumer but at least whatever fat she may have is spread over her whole body, unlike than yours, which is all in your head.

The next candidate was Jeffrey Lord, a frequent commentator on CNN.

TheRump told the Wall Street Journal this week that he was considering cutting funding for the subsidies that help to cover deductibles and co-pays for low-income people under the AHCA. The idea is that cutting those subsidies would threaten the survival of the program's system in the near term and so would force Democrats to negotiate on repealing the whole act.

In other words, he's threatening to destroy whatever good has come out of the Affordable Health Care Act in order to force Democrats to cooperate in destroying whatever good has come out of the Affordable Health Care Act.

And in a discussion of health care legislation on CNN, that plan, according to Jeffrey Lord, makes Donald TheRump "the Martin Luther King of healthcare."

Sometimes the clownishness just goes without saying.

Here's a good possibility. Valeri Cordón, an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - the Mormons - gave a speech at the church's biannual General Conference the first weekend in April in which he declared that your promise to tithe - that is, to give 10% of your income to the church - outweighs all other obligations, even to the point of letting your children go hungry.

Jeffrey Lord

Of course, Jesus declared "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Luke 6:20-21), told a rich man that to be sure of being saved he should keep the commandments and "go and sell what you have, and give to the poor" (Matthew 19:21), and said "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24), but when your church is making an estimated $7 billion a year by tithing, who's gonna let a few hungry children spoil things?

But even he could not match the combination of inanity and venality of our winner. So this week the Big Red Nose goes to a Georgia-based preacher named Kenneth Adkins.

It's been not quite a year since Omar Mateen shot up the LGBTQ-oriented Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others in the worst mass shooting in US history.

In response to the attack on the nightclub, Adkins tweeted out "Dear Gays, Go sit down somewhere. I know you want some special attention," but "You are sinners who need Jesus."

Valeri Cordón

He came back later to add that the victims got "what they deserve."

Earlier, in 2014, Adkins had helped lead a fight against expanding Jacksonville’s anti-discrimination law to protect LGBTQ people, during which he, among other offenses, portrayed black church leaders who supported expanding the law as slaves being sold on auction blocks. He also - of course - is opposed to transgender rights because of the "sexual predators in the bathroom" nonsense.

Which related to why he is here, because sexual predation is something he was familiar with.

On April 10, Kenneth Adkins was convicted in Brunswick, Georgia of eight counts of sexually molesting a minor: five counts of child molestation, two counts of aggravated child molestation, and one count of enticing a child.

Kenneth Adkins

The jury took just an hour to reach its verdict.

Thus is demonstrated the principle of Karma.

And I would call it an act of, if you will, Christian forbearance that I only call him a - and if you have any doubt about the rightness of the award, consider that one point during the battle over expanding Jacksonville's anti-discrimination ordinance, a fight that, by the way, was won by the good side, Adkins dressed in drag and said on Facebook "I am gonna 'pee' next to your women in the women's bathroom and let's see how you feel," apparently, it appears, blissfully unaware that women's bathrooms do not have urinals and hey, bro', "your women" have undoubtedly already shared a restroom with a transgender women and never knew it.

Call him a bigot, call him a hypocrite, call him a predator, it doesn't change the fact that Kenneth Adkins is a clown.