Those tracts filled me with so much fear when I was a kid. To this day when I get a whiff of the kind of cheap bulk paper they were printed on, goosebumps run up and down my skin.

I write about anti-LGBTQ conversion therapy every now and then, and part of the problem we have in the United States combating the incredibly harmful practice is ... Jack Chick.

Well, not directly, but the ideas he popularized really cause big problems. I wrote recently about Democratic politicians in the Kansas City area successfully maneuvering to to scuttle a proposed conversion-therapy ban.

The politicians, who describe themselves as Christians, objected to the law because it did not exempt Christian churches and Christian church schools.

These politicians are down with Jack Chick's theology. So are lots of Christians. According to them, if you pray right, if you say the right words, and if you mean them strongly enough, you'll stop being gay or trans, because Jesus will take that cross from you.

Well, that's not how it works. Decades of data demonstrate that, but Christians just will not let go of Jack Chick's nonsense, not even liberal Democratic Party leaders in Kansas City.