Antivax, chemtrails, and creationism


hovindjail

Kent Hovind is getting divorced from Jo Hovind. I guess this isn’t surprising — maybe his former wife is smarter than he is (a hurdle easily cleared), and saw through all the BS and manipulation and realized it was time to get out.

He’s also remarrying, to an anti-vax crank named Mary Tocco. He’s made a video announcement of his engagement, and it’s another bit of obnoxious lunacy. He spends half of it blaming his ex-wife completely for the divorce — I guess he had absolutely nothing to do with it, despite getting the two of them arrested and imprisoned with demented legal advice — and the other half reassuring everyone that he checked with a whole bunch of fellow ministers, ranging in age from 60 to 85, and 15 out of 16 assured him that it was perfectly OK, and then he mumbles on about how this opens up whole new options for his ministry, allowing him to understand all those divorced people out there at last.

I predicted that there would be interesting times ahead for Hovind’s Creation Science Evangelism once he got out of jail — he’d left management of the creationist organization in the hands of his son, Eric, and I kind of figured it would not be an easy transition once he got out and tried to take back the ministry he’d run into the ground with his tax fraud. And it was so. Hovind is claiming that Jo and Eric conspired to steal all the assets of CSE out from under him. It’s gotten very ugly and confusing.

When Kent originally announced that his divorce, he claimed that Eric had stolen from him and would not let him have the web domain “drdino.com”. He claimed Eric sold himself over two-million dollars worth of equipment and supplies. He mentioned a couple of four-wheelers, a copy machine and a fork-lift. Deana Holmes, a non-practicing attorney, who has been following the Hovind story speculated that he was way off on his valuation and that a lot of the supplies were old T-Shirts, VHS tapes, DVD’s and CD’s of Kent’s old non-copyrighted videos which are all on YouTube. I don’t normally take Kent’s public word as fact, but assuming that we have a couple of old four-wheelers, a fork-lift, some office furniture, plus, the material that Deana mentioned, the price that Eric paid for this is probably about right. Deana pointed out that these accusations were pretty stupid in the light of his tax-liabilities and legal problems they could cause for his son. Kent said in court and in public that he took a vow of poverty and owned nothing. Then turned around and claimed publically that Eric and his mother conspired to take everything away from him. Which one is the truth Kent? Did you own nothing? Or did you own two-million dollars worth of items that Eric stole from you? Just like all of Kent’s statements that seem to change to fit the circumstance.

Eric has stuffed his ministry into a shiny new dumpster, called “God’s Quest”, while Kent seems to be trying to set up a place of his own in a gravel pit in Lenox, Alabama, where he’ll build a brand new Dinosaur Adventure Land. I’m sure this marriage with Mary Tocco will bring order out of chaos. After all, look at her credentials.

Mary is co-founder of the American Chiropractic Autism Board (ACAB) 2006, helped manage Hope For Autism, (HFA) a training program for physicians who want to help children with autism recover and is the Vice President of the Foundation for Pediatric Health. She is also the Director of Vaccine Research and Education for Michigan for Vaccine Choice, a non-profit (501c) watchdog group, insuring vaccine choice in Michigan. Mary Tocco is on the Board of Directors for WAVE, World Association for Vaccine Education (www.novaccine.com)

Wait. The American…Chiropractic…Autism…Board? Those words do not belong together.

Once again, the Hovinds — every one of them — set the standard for creationist inanity.

Comments

  1. blf says

    This is a claim by a Hovind (which sounds like a Doctor Who monster). There is no reason to believe it, the claim has less plausibility than anything teh trum-prat burbles. It is, very probably, in typical Hovind style, some sort of a money scamming fraud (Scooby-Doo, where are you?).

  2. komarov says

    Wait. The American…Chiropractic…Autism…Board? Those words do not belong together.

    Quacks of the world UNITE! You have nothing to lose except your FDA approval. Assuming that, for some strange reason, you had it in the first place.

    Besides, I see some value in an official international organisation to oversee pseudoscientist, charlatans and quacks. The WQO, the World Quack Organisation could ‘regulate’ the practitioners, which with any luck might reduce the use of the actively harmful practices. Furthermore the WQO would be obligated to keep an index of approved treatments and practices. So if anyone is ever in doubt whether that prescription or advice from a ‘friend’ should be disregarded with enthusiam, they can just check out the index. The quacks get to advertise themselves and their would-be victims get an official reference book to help avoid them.
    For the post of Charlatan General I’d nominate Deepak Chopra – I can think of noone more suitable or deserving of this honour. The organisation is to be funded with a homepathic solution of gold, commonly known as sea water.

  3. says

    I think you overlooked the main issue. That, naturally being, why on God’s Green Earth does Hovind, any of them, own a fork lift? What possible purpose does it have?

  4. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    [to the tune of Moon River]
    Two grifters, off to see the world, there’s such a lot of world to fleece…

  5. robro says

    So Mr. By-The-Book Christian is getting a divorce…one no-no…and announcing his remarriage in practically the same breath…another no-no. From the puritanical, evangelical perspective, that’s a free ticket to hell. And he knew Tocco in the past…one might ask: could there be infidelity behind this story.

    At least he asked the advice of some authorities first…hahahaha. I wonder who dissented?

    Mike Smith — “…why on God’s Green Earth does Hovind, any of them, own a fork lift? What possible purpose does it have?” The obvious answer? Move shit. They’ve got a lot of it to shift about.

  6. says

    Eric Hovind is a YEC, but he’s always been rather more attached to consensus reality (at least social reality) than his father. Not that that’s hard.

  7. says

    I don’t normally take Kent’s public word as fact, but assuming that we have a couple of old four-wheelers, a fork-lift, some office furniture, plus, the material that Deana mentioned, the price that Eric paid for this is probably about right.

    I’m a little confused by this. Does he mean that this stuff is actually worth $2 million? I’d put it closer to $20k.