The Republicans have found a candidate to run against Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) in 2008. And this guy is a doozy. First of all, Joel Dykstra is an Oral Roberts University alumnus. Never mind that Kathie Lee Gifford is their most famous alumnus, the institution is strictly for religious freaks.
All students are required to sign a pledge stating they will live according to the university’s honor code. Prohibited activities include lying, cursing, smoking, drinking, gambling, and illicit sexual acts including homosexual behavior. In early 2004 the student dress code was greatly relaxed for the first time in forty years. Prior to that time, men were required to wear button-down shirts and ties, while women were required to wear skirts (with an exception for winter months added in 2000).
Oral Roberts founded the university in 1963 after having a conversation with God. Mr. Roberts had a lot of conversations with God.
In 1977 Roberts claimed to have a vision from a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told him to build City of Faith Medical and Research Center and the hospital would be a success.
In 1980, Roberts said he had a vision which encouraged him to continue the construction of his City of Faith Medical and Research Center, which opened in 1981. At the time, it was among the largest health facilities of its kind in the world and sought to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process…
In 1983 Roberts said Jesus had appeared to him in person and commissioned him to find a cure for cancer.
In 1987, during a fund raising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would “call him home” (a euphemism for death).
So, this is the educational background of Mr. Joel Dykstra. After he graduated from Oral Roberts University he went on to work for 20 years in the…wait for it…oil and gas industry.
Remember when the South Dakota legislature passed the law banning abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest? Dykstra had an answer for critics.
“I think ‘rape and incest’ is a buzzword. It’s a bit of a throwaway line and not everybody who says that really understands what that means. How are you going to define that?” –South Dakota state Rep. Joel Dykstra (R-Lincoln County) on why the state legislature didn’t include those exceptions in its abortion ban, April 20, 2006.
Okay. In the context of an abortion ban, ‘incest’ is when you are impregnated by your father, brother, uncle, cousin, or other male relative. This often involves ‘rape’, which in the context of an abortion ban means that you were impregnated during a non-consensual sexual encounter. The idea behind the ‘rape and incest’ buzzword [sic] is that no woman should be forced to carry a baby resulting from an act she did not consent to. There’s also the factor of increased likelihood of birth defects in incestuous pregnancies, but that is a side issue. I’m not sure that there is anyone alive that truly doesn’t understand these definitions except, perhaps, Joel Dykstra.
So, if the people of South Dakota want another misogynist, religious fruitcake, oil and gas man in the U.S. Senate they now have their candidate.
