Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.
By David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement

Environmental Protection chief Scott Pruitt believes the “most grievous threat” facing America are the courts, which he called the “imperialistic judiciary” and the “judicial monarchy,” claiming their objective is to create “religious sterility.”

Radio archives from Oklahoma also show Scott Pruitt warning of ‘judicial monarchy’ and advocating constitutional amendments to ban abortion and gay marriage.
https://t.co/uvJXJ6G3fc via @emilyhholden @alexcguillen pic.twitter.com/NcUCjdu9Ro

— POLITICO (@politico) March 2, 2018

Pruitt made those staggering remarks and others in a series of interviews with an Oklahoma talk radio station in 2005, according to Politico, which obtained the tapes from an anonymous source.

In the interviews, Pruitt condemns evolution as an unproven “theory” that is at the base of humanism.

“There aren’t sufficient scientific facts to establish the theory of evolution, and it deals with the origins of man, which is more from a philosophical standpoint than a scientific standpoint,” Pruitt said in 2005. More recently, despite the overwhelming conclusion of 97 percent of climate scientists, Pruitt remains not quite a climate change denier, but definitely a skeptic.

“There aren’t sufficient scientific facts to establish the theory of evolution, and it deals with the origins of man, which is more from a philosophical standpoint than a scientific standpoint,” Pruitt said on an Oklahoma radio program in 2005. https://t.co/20oZv5lOG8 pic.twitter.com/i8QpcYvfkQ

— POLITICO (@politico) March 2, 2018

He also believes that people will only do the right thing if they are people of faith who follow an organized religion.

But apparently not just any religion. Pruitt did not disagree when the radio host said Islam is “not so much a religion as it is a terrorist organization in many instances.” He did interject moments later to agree with her on another point.

As a guest on a radio show in 2005, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt did not object when the program’s host described Islam as “not so much a religion as it is a terrorist organization in many instances.”
https://t.co/klIfcxXWSm via @emilyhholden @alexcguillen pic.twitter.com/e43aJfk2oH

— POLITICO (@politico) March 2, 2018

Pruitt also tied so-called “gun rights” to the Christian god.

“If you can tell me what gun, type of gun, I can possess, then I didn’t really get that right to keep and bear arms from God,” he says in the recordings. “It was not bequeathed to me, it was not unalienable, right?”

He voiced support for banning same-sex marriage and abortion via a constitutional convention, which he also wanted to use to “protect the Pledge of Allegiance and the Ten Commandments,” Politico reports.

The EPA administrator made his remarks when he was a state senator, before becoming the Attorney General of Oklahoma. Politico reports the EPA refused to say if its top official still holds these beliefs.