Turns out the man who killed two people and wounded nine in a Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater Thursday night (before turning the gun on himself) was also racist, misogynistic, homophobic creep in his spare time.
CNN reports:
John Russell Houser apparently penned anti-government, anti-media blog posts. He was subject to a 2008 restraining order in which his then-wife and daughter were “fearful of him,” police said. The one-time bar owner spent time that year and the next getting treated for mental health issues. And last year, he was evicted from a house he used to own in Phenix City, Alabama, and returned to vandalize the property, the sheriff there said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups and their supporters (hi Tony Perkins!) has a detailed account on Houser's long history of right-wing extremist views:
“Do not mistake yourselves for one minute, the enemy sees all posted on this website. I do not want to discourage the last hope for the best, but you must realize the power of the lone wolf, is the power that come forth in ALL situations,” Houser wrote on a forum dedicated to the New York chapter of Golden Dawn, Greece's far-right neo-Nazi political party. “Look within yourselves.”
That comment was one of dozens of messages that Houser, 59, left on several Internet message boards, all of which provide a picture of a politically disaffected, angry man who viewed the United States as a “financially failing filth farm,” expressed interest in white power groups, anti-Semitic ideas, the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a number of conspiracy theories often espoused by the antigovernment right.
Patheos adds that a Twitter account under Houser's name praised WBC in one of only two Tweets that were ever sent out.
The Westboro Baptist Church may be the last real church in America[members not brainwashed].
— john russell houser (@jrustyhouser) June 5, 2013
And on his Facebook page, Houser linked to an article called “A woman's place in the church and the weak church elder,” with Houser writing “The bible doesn't ask me to like what it says, only to obey it.”
Disturbing stuff.
