Radio host Paul Ridgeway suggested God will punish those who help pass the anti-bullying bill: “What this is going to do to our children, really, God forbid what is going to happen to those legislators, those administrators, the elected officials that allow this to become law.”

Anti-LGBT activist are taking to Christian radio to rally against a bill that would strengthen Minnesota’s laws against bullying. They oppose the bill because it includes protections for LGBT students.

AM 980 KKMS’ drive-time talk program, On the Way hosted by Paul Ridgeway has become a focal point for misinformation about the Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act and Minnesota’s LGBT community. Over the past two weeks, the program has hosted two representatives from the anti-LGBT Minnesota Child Protection League, Mimi Anderson and Michele Lentz. Also appearing on the program was Republican state Sen. Roger Chamberlain, anti-LGBT columnist Katherine Kersten, and anti-LGBT preachers Pat Hall and Dale Witherington.

On Mar. 10, Ridgeway again hosted a panel of anti-LGBT activists to condemn the bill and the LGBT community. The program started with the Rev. Dale Witherington who recently said that the anti-bullying bill was part of a 45-point plan to create a godless America (labor organizing, marriage equality, and tax increases are also part of that strategy), according to Witherington.

On KKMS, Witherington repeated the misleading claim that the anti-bullying bill will usher in obscenity in the schools.

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″]Ridgeway: Nobody wants to have anybody bullied, gay or straight or anybody, but this bill’s intention is to promulgate and promote homosexual activity and indoctrination to children K-12 and public schools and private schools.
—
Witherington: I’ve sat in on hundred of hours of this over the last several months.
Ridge: Dale’s at the Capitol almost every day
Witherington: This is not about a gay agenda versus a non-gay agenda. This impact 19 different groups of students but the unfortunate thing is it does not protect all students in the State of Minnesota. It creates too much vagueness with who really who gets protected and who does not get protected with this law.
—
It’s opening the doors not just to the propagation of a gay lifestyle, if that’s where certain people are, but it opens the door to all kinds of other sexually promiscuous types of material. In fact, the primary textbook — it’s even being used a lot either as a primary source or a secondary source right now in our school districts — is a book that a warden in the State of Washington would not allow in his prison because its too obscene for prisoners and it’s targeted toward our ten years olds to 4th graders.
Ridgeway: You know what’s scary? The most famous doctor in the United States who is an expert in pornography, how it affects young people. He says the material that would be allowed in this bill with bullying would impact children’s minds as much as pornography would. [/sws_grey_box]

He was presumably speaking about Dr. Victor Cline. He died in 2013 before this bill was authored. There’s no indication that he weighed in on Minnesota’s proposed legislation.

The book Witherington was talking about was probably It’s Perfectly Normal. That a sexual health book would be used for bullying prevention is a conspiracy theory being promoted by the Minnesota Child Protection League with which Witherington has been working closely.

 
 

Ridgeway then spoke with Mimi Anderson of the Minnesota Child Protection League. “This sounds like ‘big brother’ to me,” Ridgeway said. “Actually it reminds me of my days in college in history as a history major of Stalinist Russia trying to divide the family against the state and all that.”

He then asked:

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″] Ridgeway: A caller texted me: So gays are not allowed to have rights? That’s not the issue of this at all. Mimi, will you respond to it?
Anderson: Well, they have rights but why would anyone have extra rights? You wanna look at that? What the CPL is doing is making a stand, you know. We are protecting kids. Why does this legislature, why does this piece… this bill want to harm children? This is harmful i don’t care if you are LGBT or what you are. This is harmful to you, when you talk about the usurping of parental rights. You look at the burden on the teachers. I mean really that’s why the Child Protection League Action was formed. We work for protecting children and stopping the indoctrination and the harmful legislation that just usurps their freedom of speech in the school and their consciousness. What happens to them when they speak for the way that they believe if its not in alignment with this so called developmentally programmatic age appropriate instruction. I mean that’s the language in the bill. [/sws_grey_box]

 
 

Witherington responded to that question as well, suggesting that people with a “bigger agenda” are using the LGBT community to get the bill passed. Witherington didn’t explain what he meant, but he previously gave speeches that states the anti-bullying bill was part of a 45-point plan to turn America into a godless nation.

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″]Witherington: I’m going to go out on a limb here ’cause I agree with everything that Mimi said but I want to give one more piece to your friend about gay rights. I believe our constitutional and state laws fully protects those who are gay just as much as they protect those who aren’t or whatever, whoever we are. However, I believe that this bill is a government exploitation, in this case of the LGBT community, using them to get a much bigger and different agenda accomplished and unfortunately, the gay community is being exploited at their expense and their expense will show up if this bill gets passed.
—
Ridgeway: This bill is a really an doctrinal issue to indoctrinate K-12 in the homosexual lifestyle showing them graphics that kids shouldn’t see their age, secretly telling them the parents won’t know anything. I tell you folks I am deeply troubled.[/sws_grey_box]

 
 
He added that those behind the bill were part of the “principalities of darkness.”

Click here to read part one of this report: Christian Radio: Anti-bullying bill is like Russian oppression, pornography