Georgia Rep. Says Evolution Is a Lie From 'Pit of Hell'
A video that shows Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun telling a church crowd that the theories of evolution and the big bang are "lies straight from the pit of Hell" is going viral after an anti-conservative group began to distribute it.
"God's word is true. I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior," the video shows Broun saying in a Sept. 27 speech at a sportsman's banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Ga.
The church posted the speech to YouTube on Thursday, but removed it after the research group Bridge Project began to distribute a clip from the video. The Bridge Project "is dedicated to exposing the conservative movement's dishonest tactics, dismantling its extreme ideology, and shining light on the moneyed special interests that fund it," the group describes itself on its website.
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Broun, a medical doctor who chairs the House Science Committee's panel on investigations and oversight, was "speaking off the record to a large church group about his personal beliefs regarding religious issues," the congressman's spokeswoman Meredith Griffanti has said.
However, some media are calling him an "anti-science" legislator, and comparing him to Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin, who came under fire after his recent remark that women who are "legitimately raped" rarely get pregnant.
Broun also told the church group, "You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I've found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don't believe that the earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says.
"And what I've come to learn is that it's the manufacturer's handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that's the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I'll continue to do that."
