Shades of the three stooges in Virginia. Buzzfeed quotes from a 2008 book by the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Virginia, E.W. Jackson, who was a minister at the time. "“It is the principle of sin, rebellion against God and His truth which has brought about birth defects and other destructive natural occurrences," Jackson wrote. He's also stirred controversy by saying that Planned Parenthood had done more to harm black people than the Ku Klux Klan and that homosexuals are "perverted" and "very sick people."
From his book, excerpted on Buzzfeed, more on the sin-causes-birth-defects argument:
Keep in mind that the whole cosmos has been made imperfect — wounded — by sin. It is the principle of sin, rebellion against God and His truth which has brought about birth defects and other destructive natural occurrences. Leaving aside that for a moment, recent discoveries about the genetic code of each human being are a fulfillment of scripture. Your genetic code is the handwriting of God, written before you or the world existed. Our genetic blueprint is proof of the existence of the Living God and His infinite intelligence, purpose and design. Sadly, many will ignore the deeper spiritual truth which underlies the advance of this scientific knowledge.
Well yeah, okay, hard to argue with that.