WASHINGTON — A newly released biography of Martin Luther King Jr. penned collaboratively by prominent Republican politicians and pundits has revealed some surprising facts about the late civil rights leader’s political views.
The biography, titled MLK: Father of the Modern GOP, is a compilation of writings from Republican figures like Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity, which analyze King’s speeches and sermons to find “what this icon really believed, not merely what he wrote and said he believed.”
In one chapter, a series of previously unseen journal entries allegedly written by Martin Luther King, Jr., appear to validate the claim that King would strongly oppose any and all efforts at gun control, an opinion voiced frequently by conservatives in Congress and on television.
“I would rather be fatally shot than to see even one gun owner’s right to bear arms infringed upon,” reads one passage supposedly written by the proponent of nonviolent resolution to conflict. “Furthermore, I firmly believe that slavery would not have occurred at all had Africans who were imported for the express purpose of slavery been given guns and the basic right to bear them, and also maybe some other basic rights, of which they of course had none.”
The book also denounces other practices which conservatives typically disapprove, such as affirmative action or the illegality of public school-mandated prayer.
“Reverend King – who was a reverend, by the way, with a degree in theology – felt that all schools should have mandated prayer in every single class, with students of all denominations of Christianity free to pray as they see fit,” writes Coulter on behalf of Martin Luther King, Jr. “Jews can do their thing, too. They’ll come around. Not Muslims, though.”
