Steve Aiken
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Claims to fame: Tucson, Arizona, “working-class conservative” talk-show host for Christian radio station KVOI-AM; “self-proclaimed reverend”; ex-cop; ex-communications director for Lou Sheldon’s gay-hating Traditional Values Coalition; ex-campaign manager for Randy Graf (R-Ariz.-8); convicted child molester— er, “minor corruptor”
Moral apex: Convicted in 1996 of “two counts of corruption of a minor stemming from his 1995 sexual relationships with two teenage girls,” in Pennsylvania, for which he “served almost two-and-a-half months at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility,” as reported by ABC News (GOP Campaign Manager Guilty of Corruption of Minors, June 16, 2006).
ABC News also reports:
The self-proclaimed reverend met the underage teens in Pennsylvania through YouthQuest, a Christian counseling agency.According to testimony by the victim, reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Aiken “came into her room while she was asleep, undressed her and began to rub her breasts.”
Aiken reportedly forced himself on the girl about 15 times in the course of four months, according to the Inquirer.
Adds the Tucson Citizen:
Another girl accused him of having sex with her in his car and at a thrift store.A jury convicted Aiken of two counts of corruption of a minor but deadlocked on sexual assault charges.
Twinkie defense: He’s innocent, he tells you, innocent! “I won’t waste your time,” he wrote June 17, 2006, on one of his Web sites, “re-hashing old news except to say; [sic] I have NEVER wavered from my stance that I simply did not commit the crimes in which I was convicted.”
Fall-on-the-sword moment: NBC affiliate KVOA reported that Aiken said “it’s not out of the question that he may quit the campaign to spare Graf the negative publicity.”
But: Aiken didn’t have a chance to fall on his sword; Graf fired him the same day (June 17, 2006).
Questions to which we haven’t yet found answers:
1. How did Aiken plead? Not guilty? Rumor has it that he plea-bargained for the two-and-a-half-month sentence.
2. Has he appealed his conviction? If so, he must have lost the appeal. Why?
3. If he hasn’t appealed his conviction, why hasn’t he?
4. Why is he no longer a police officer?
Memorable quotes:
How someone practices sex doesn’t belong in the open market. It’s a private matter.— Bashing gays, as usual, in 2001
I was ok with it until they came after our kids in school AND demanded the right to be married….since when do we grant people special rights based on how they CHOOSE to have sex?
— From his Web site, regarding homosexuality
It’s apparent that political operatives have used my past (almost twelve years ago) to try and hurt Randy Graf’s chances for election. … [On] my radio show on March 25, 2006 where I predicted ALMOST to the letter, that this was going to happen! …
However, if the “left” or even those of my own Republican party, think that this is somehow going to make me go away, they do not know me very well. I will not stop promoting Conservative candidates and Christian causes. I’m sure not going to curl up in a ball and go away just because I was falsely convicted almost twelve years ago.
That is exactly what the “left” and the enemies of this great Country would like, and exactly why I WILL NOT CAVE IN! THE SHOW MUST GO ON!
— Proclaiming his innocence again,
on one of his Web sites
June 17, 2006
Memorable observations:
What he did was no more serious than providing a teenager with beer.— Randy Graf, illustrating his own moral relativism,
to ABC News, June 16, 2006
To compare assaulting teenage girls with giving a kid a beer shows Randy has no sense of proportion. If my kid were volunteering for Randy and he never told me about Steve’s conviction, I’d be mad as heck.
— Steve Huffman (R-Ariz.), June 17, 2006
I have never equated buying alcohol for a minor with sexual misconduct.
— Randy Graf’s retort
According to the Allentown Morning Call, at his sentencing hearing in June 1996, Aiken said, “Steve Aiken’s days of helping kids are over.”
In addition to his political activities, Aiken also hosts a weekly radio program on KVOI in Tucson. Aiken’s website includes a “help wanted” page seeking high school or college students to work as volunteer interns on the radio program.
— ABC News, June 16, 2006
When you go around standing on a soapbox telling everyone else what “family values” are all about, the you should expect that your own lack of commitment to those will face scrutiny. This is where Republicans, once again, refuse to accept responsibility — it seems they only believe it is news if someone else does something wrong, not themselves.
Don’t campaign on a bunch of vague “traditional” values if your own life is filled with being a scumbag. When a party grounds itself on a dishonorable televangelista empire, what does the public expect? Honesty?
— Comment to Brian Ross’ ABC News blog, June 17, 2006
Fun facts:
• Compares himself to another local right-wing talk-show host, who “too had a conviction for a relatively minor offence.” (emphasis ours; British spelling his)
• He’s another one of those “America is a Christian nation” idiots, who obviously has never read a word the Founding Fathers had to say on the subject.
• On one of his Web sites, Aiken writes of the ACLU: “They give me aggidda, trying to tear the pages of history out of this countries [sic] Christian Heritage, nothing but a bunch of hypocrites!”
We have no idea what “aggidda” is — unless he’s referring to a planet in a certain RPG, in which case he misspelled Agidda. That leaves us wondering what such a good Christian is doing involving himself with role-playing games, since, as we all know, that Dungeons & Dragons stuff is the playtoy of Satan!
After all, it was Aiken himself who issued the Traditional Values Coalition’s big, scary warning that Harry Potter books are essentially “an abomination to God” — and how the Wiccanism represented therein
• Also on one of his Web sites, he loves showing off photos of himself posing with many of his fellow Republican sinners, including serial adulterer Bob Livingston, adulterer and drooling Viagra spokesman Bob Dole, divorcé Jack Kemp, bastard-sire J.C. Watts, Jr., ugly little twerp Gary Bauer, and many other stains on the human race, such as Kenneth Starr, Tom DeLay, John Ashcroft, Jerry Falwell, Oliver North, and Tim “I’m making a fortune exploiting made-up stuff about Armageddon!” LaHaye.
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Aiken:
For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.— Luke 12:2