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Sharron Angle's Fringe Third Party Sponsored Virulently Anti-Gay Flier In '90s

Justin Elliott | June 24, 2010, 6:01PM

Sharron Angle (R)

Independent American Party, NV-SEN, Sharron Angle

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The far-right third party that Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle called home in the 1990s supported abolishing "the debt money system" and ran a vitriolic anti-gay insert in state newspapers that portrays LGBT people -- or, as Angle's party called them, "sodomites" -- as child-molesting, HIV-carrying, Hell-bound freaks, according to documents obtained by TPM.

As we reported earlier this month, Angle was a member of Nevada's Independent American Party, a Christian conservative-cum-libertarian third party, for at least six years while she was getting her feet wet in politics in the 1990s. Independent American Party members told us that Angle switched to be a Republican in 1997 out of political expediency as she was preparing to make a run for state-level office.

But the details of her time in the Independent American Party have been somewhat shrouded in mystery -- which brings us to the two documents we obtained from that era.

This is a 1992 petition, signed and circulated by Angle, that was part of a successful push to get the Independent American Party on the ballot. It features the Independent American manifesto -- including the acknowledgment "That many Americans have ignored the Laws of God."

The petition says that party members support a proposed Constitutional amendment called the Liberty Amendment, which would "compel the Federal Government to halt its unconstitutional programs and wasteful expenditures such as foreign aid and welfare corruption. It will prohibit the financing of the New World Order with American taxes."

The amendment would also "eliminate the debt money system and restore Constitutional money to the people. It will thus eliminate the contrived purposes for income taxes and will abolish the Marxist graduated income tax and the fearful I.R.S. It will transfer public lands in the West to State ownership and control. It will restore freedom and prosperity to America."

Angle's campaign did not respond to a request for comment about her time in the party.

In 1994, the party attracted considerable controversy by placing a 16-page advertising insert in Nevada newspapers promoting an amendment to the state constitution that would explicitly permit discrimination against LGBT people by businesses and government.

Janine Hansen, the current executive director of the party and the editor of the '94 insert, told TPM earlier this month that "in general [Angle] agreed with our position on the issues."

The ad insert, which approvingly cites an 1814 legal treatise titled "Consequences of Sodomy: Ruin of a Nation," is a digest of articles that refer to LGBT people alternately as "homosexuals," "sodomites," and "brazen perverts." The insert includes virtually every homophobic myth ever conceived.

Sample headlines include: "Homosexual Curriculum In The First Grade" ... "Flawed Science Nurtures Genetic Origin For Homosexuality" ... "No Constitutional Right To Be A Sodomite." Here's a passage from an item headlined "True Homosexual Character Revealed":

Homosexuals argue that they are a peaceful and gay people. Yet ... Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Report writes "the top six U.S. male killers were all homosexuals."

Probably the coup de grace of the insert is the article "Can the HIV Virus Survive in Water?". Writer Lorraine Day, M.D., concluded that yes, the virus can survive in the water. Citing medical journal articles, she raised the specter of HIV infection through public pools, hot tubs, and municipal water supplies.

Independent American Party supporters could buy "Homophobia - No | Homonausea - Yes" bumper stickers for the special low price of $1.

Here's the full insert:

1994 IAP 16 Page Newspaper Insert