Charlton Heston

From dKosopedia

Category: California Republicans

Charlton Heston is the former Hollywood actor, the former President of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and a current spokeman for the NRA.

Originally a political liberal, by the 1980s Heston had become a conservative who opposed affirmative action and gun control. He campaigned for Republican candidates including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. As the President of the NRA President, Heston is best known and most parodied for raising an antique Sharps Rifle over his head at the 2000 NRA convention, for saying that presidential candidate Al Gore would take away his so-called Second Amendment rights "from my cold, dead hands". In announcing his resignation in 2003, he would again raise a rifle over his head and repeat the five words of this thantopic mantra. He is now better known for that than his risible performances in 'The Ten Commandments' and 'Ben Hur'.

In 1996, Charlton Heston attended the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of conservative movement organizations. There he agreed to pose for a group photo that included Gordon Lee Baumm, the founder of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) and former White Citizens Council organizer. Virginia's ultra conservative Republican Senator George Allen as also appears in the incriminating photo which was published in the Summer 1996 issue of the CCC's newsletter, the Citizens Informer.

In 1997 Heston gave his Culture War speech, describing the victim of Liberalism in Conservative code words as

"[T]he God fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle-class Protestant--or even worse, evangelical Christian, Midwestern or Southern--or even worse, rural, apparently straight--or even worse, admitted heterosexuals, gun-owning--or even worse, NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff--or even worse, male working stiff"