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24 Oct, 2014 18:57

Reagan nation: Former presidential aide urges southern states to secede over gay rights

Reagan nation: Former presidential aide urges southern states to secede over gay rights

​A former Reagan administration aide has called on southern US states to secede and establish an ultraconservative nation based on opposition to same-sex marriage and other advances in gay rights.

Former presidential aide Douglas MacKinnon told radio interviewer Janet Mefferd that he has authored a new book he believes is a blueprint for southern states to secede from the US in order to defend so-called traditional values. He said the new nation - led by the states of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida - should be named ‘Reagan,’ after his former boss, the 40th president of America.

"If you do believe in the Golden Rule, then you're seeing all of this unravel before our eyes daily, unfortunately," he said of supposed repression faced by those who are anti-equality.

"If you happen to make a donation in favor of traditional marriage, you can lose your job. If you happen to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple because it goes against your religious beliefs, you can be driven out of business."

According to Right Wing Watch, MacKinnon spoke during the interview of a South during the Civil War that had “seceded legally” and “peacefully” but that President Abraham Lincoln had “waged an illegal war that was in fact not declared against the South after the South basically did what we’re talking about in this book now in terms of peacefully, legally and constitutionally leaving the union.”

Calling for the Religious Right to embrace the secessionist movement, MacKinnon lamented the invective aimed at former NFL coach Tony Dungy, who said earlier this year that he would think twice about drafting Michael Sam, the first openly gay man to be drafted into the league.

"If you're a football commentator and you happen to just say, innocently, that maybe I wouldn't have drafted a gay football player because I wouldn't want to deal with the distraction, many people on the left would try to drive you out of your job as well,” MacKinnon said.

As The Huffington Post pointed out, MacKinnon wrote an editorial earlier this year in which he alleged that the Walt Disney Company followed a “pro-gay agenda” and was trying to “indoctrinate” children.

MacKinnon cited a Disney executive when he said the world-famous entertainment company and theme park was "introducing openly gay characters and couples in its children's programming" and "[incorporating] the colors of the gay pride flag in as many shots as possible."

MacKinnon, now a syndicated columnist, is also a former spokesman for the US Department of Defense, according to his own biography.

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