Proving yet again that the “pro-life” crowd doesn’t give a damn about actual living people, Nathaniel Darnell, the Georgia director for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, used his speech during the state’s March for Life rally on Friday to celebrate the death of former State House Speaker David Ralston, an anti-abortion Republican whom Darnell considered an “obstacle” for not being extreme enough for some conservatives.

Ralston died last November at age 68. While he recently backed a state law that banned abortions upon detection of a fetal heartbeat (before some women even know they’re pregnant), he was hesitant to pass any abortion restrictions before the Supreme Court overturned Roe under the assumption that any laws restricting abortion would be deemed unconstitutional.

Nathaniel Darnell implied in his speech that Ralston’s hesitancy made him an obstacle to their cause:

Lord, may you please confront those legislators who might seek to be an obstacle to these efforts,” said Darnell. “We thank you for how you have relieved us from one legislator, a speaker who made himself an obstacle, and we pray that, Father, you would help other legislators to serve you in fear and to take warning.

Thanks for murdering one of our allies, God, because he wanted to follow the law instead of passing extremist legislation that he later supported anyway.

It’s just an insane statement for anyone to make. And yet this guy represents the anti-abortion crowd in Georgia to the point where he had a speaker’s slot at their rally.

And just in case anyone thinks Darnell misspoke or was misinterpreted, he reiterated his position on Facebook, telling a supporter that he didn’t wish to harm people… but if they weren’t anti-abortion enough for his liking, then they shouldn’t be surprised when God harms them. (Which, to be clear, is the exact same thing.)

… We don’t wish harm on people merely who “disagree with us,” but a person who repeatedly makes himself an obstacle to following God’s moral law and thus saving human lives is standing in defiance of God and should either repent or else expect that God will providentially bring judgment on him because that’s what the <strong>Bible</strong> says God will do, and that’s what the <strong>Bible</strong> tells us to pray for.

Passing extremist legislation that would’ve been overturned in court would be a waste of time and it would protect nobody. Even fetuses. More to the point, Ralston didn’t die because God hit him with a lightning bolt on a sunny day. Ralston had an “extended illness.” You would think God would be much more eager to go after Democrats if Darnell’s theory held true.

But what else do you expect from a right-wing extremist? He delights in the death of people who disagree with him and just attributes that bloodlust to God so he can pretend he’s a morally upstanding person. It’s the same thing he did when he claimed allegations of sexual abuse were not credible without “two or three witnesses” to the act because the Bible requires it.

If this is what moral courage looks like, it’s no wonder the GOP keeps shedding young people who know better.