James Dobson, Beni Johnson, Lance Wallnau Among Key Faith Leaders Supporting Rep. Steve King
Key faith leaders including James Dobson, Beni Johnson and Lance Wallnau have signed a letter in support of Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
“We are appalled that Republican leadership would choose to believe a liberal news organization famous for their bias over an outstanding member of Congress who has served the people of Iowa and the United States honorably and faithfully for 16 years,” the letter continues.
The New York Times ran an article earlier this month, accusing King of racism. According to The Times, King allegedly made the following comments. King says he was only defending Western civilization:
But at the same time, Mr. King’s margin of victory in 2018 shrank to its narrowest in 16 years. He made national headlines for endorsing a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties and for meeting with a far-right Austrian party accused of trivializing the Holocaust. On Twitter, he follows an Australian anti-Semitic activist, who proposed hanging a portrait of Hitler “in every classroom.” And in October, the chairman of the Republican House elections committee, Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, condemned Mr. King, saying, “We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms.”…
Mr. King, in the interview, said he was not a racist. He pointed to his Twitter timeline showing him greeting Iowans of all races and religions in his Washington office. (The same office once displayed a Confederate flag on his desk.)
At the same time, he said, he supports immigrants who enter the country legally and fully assimilate because what matters more than race is “the culture of America” based on values brought to the United States by whites from Europe.
“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” Mr. King said. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”
After this article was published Thursday, Mr. King issued a public statement calling himself a “nationalist” and defending his support of “Western civilization’s values,” and said he was not an advocate for “white nationalism and white supremacy.” “I want to make one thing abundantly clear: I reject those labels and the evil ideology they define,” he wrote.
Republicans have since removed King from his committee assignments in the House of Representatives.
Porter says King was misquoted and does not stand by nor support what the Times printed.
“Unlike North Korea, we in the United States are innocent until proven guilty and hold to the principles of Western Civilization, as Rep. King so admirably does,” Porter says in the letter.
“The foundational principle begins with the self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ These are the principles to which Rep. King was referring and which he has championed for more than two decades of public service.