Why is Bob Marshall–the Virginia state delegate who stated that disabled children are a punishment from god for the sin of abortion–still upset about the fact that a student journalist quoted him accurately and on tape? Instead of letting the controversy die down Marshall is still stoking the fires. He continues to try parsing his own words that nature will take “vengeance” on a woman who aborts her “first-born” (kinda hard when there is no child and no birth).  And even though he said it, and mentioned the Old Testament, Christians, and “punishment” in the same breath, for some reason he’s still upset that people could have inferred that he was talking about “divine punishment.” Now why would anyone get that impression… aside from his own words?

Perhaps it’s because of how he was introduced.

The man who introduced Del. Marshall at the press conference is Rev. Joe Ellison. Remember when Pat Robertson got into trouble for suggesting Haiti got an earthquake because Haitians had made a pact with the devil? Well at the press conference last Thursday Rev. Ellison also mentioned he agreed with Robertson.

Right Wing Watch has posted a video of Ellison’s introduction.

“From a spiritual standpoint, we think the Dr. Robertson was on target about Haiti, in the past, with voodoo. And we believe in the Bible that the practice of voodoo is a sin, and what caused the nation to suffer. Those who read the Bible and study the history know that what Dr. Robertson said was the truth.”

As Josh Glasstetter asks, “Does Marshall stand behind Ellison and his remarks on Haiti?”

Considering he just was introduced by a man who said those who practice sin deserves to suffer (translation: all Haitians today deserve to suffer from a horrible earthquake because in 1791 they rebelled as slaves) is there any reason to believe that Marshall didn’t mean exactly what he said?

Now let’s say that Marshall, in his zeal to defund Planned Parenthood in Virginia,  accidentally went a little overboard; normally if people misspeak they apologize and move on. That would be the normal response. But not for Bob Marshall.

Yesterday on the floor of Virginia’s House of Delegates Marshall continued to deny what he actually said and blamed the Capital News Service for reporting on it —  I mean not contacting him about the “alleged” comments the reporter both heard, witnessed, and recorded. Here’s part of his statement on the floor:

A February 22nd Capital News Service story claimed, “Western Prince William Del. Bob Marshall (R-13th) says disabled children are God’s punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy.”

I never made this statement. I believe that all children, no matter their background are a blessing from the Lord, not a punishment. Capital News Service never called me about these alleged comments.

No other reporter who attended the same February 18th press conference regarding Planned Parenthood funding made the same claim for the simple reason that I never made such a statement about disabled children.

A video of the press conference bears this out.

Of course the subsequent full transcript does the opposite:

“Thank you very much for coming here today. We are dealing with an attempt to defund, frankly, a malevolent organization. And I say that because you know people by their fruits. In 1960, 65, the out of wed-lock birthrate for blacks was 25 percent. I think it was about 23 percent in 1960 – it was 5 percent for all races. Now it’s 40 percent. It’s 72 percent  for blacks, 51 percent for Latinas. These are the fruits of planned parenthood. OK. Nothing else. More heartache. More guys who are completely irresponsible and think that women have one function and one function only for a few minutes. OK. But this just isn’t affecting our families, our inner cities, our communities and our state. This poison animates a world-wide population control program that the United States funds and which is unnecessarily making us enemies overseas. We are attacking traditional family structure in a way that no country should be doing. These aren’t my words. Go read a book by Denesh DeSouza [sic]. Ok. He’s looking at it from a cultural, historical perspective. This organization should be called Planned Barrenhood cause they have nothing to do with families, they have nothing to do with responsibility. One-fourth of all abortions are done by Planned Parenthood in the United States. Ok. The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion who have handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first-born of any, Nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the first-born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest, and with the knowledge they have from faith has been verified by a study by the Virginia Commonwealth University. First abortions of the first pregnancy are much more damaging to the woman than latter abortions. None of these are good for anybody but this organization has had its time. They have failed in their efforts and we need to defund them and not have them receive a dime of public money.”

Right Wing Watch has posted videos and transcripts of both the original conference and Marshall’s statements yesterday. As Josh Glasstetter points out anyone reading the above speech would pretty much take it to mean there’s divine punishment for women who have abortions.

…Marshall’s own video proves, he did make these comments and, in fact, all the “science” stuff at the end is meant to bolster his central point that women who have abortions are subsequently punished with disabled children later on.

The more Marshall talks the more fuel there is for the people calling for his resignation.