Governor's adviser called abortion supporters 'seemingly demonically possessed'

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office says it didn’t review an incendiary video address prepared by the adviser he had put in charge of the state’s new Office of Family & Life. In the video presented May 11 to the Alaska Family Council, Dunleavy’s then-pro-family policy adviser Jeremy Cubas described supporters of abortion rights as “seemingly demonically possessed” and claimed they were motivated by a “primal urge” to “sacrifice a child at the altar of their false idols.”

The video, obtained last week in response to a public records request, raises new questions about Dunleavy’s oversight of Cubas, whom he hired last year as a photographer. Dunleavy promoted Cubas to his family policy adviser in April in spite of an easy-to-find podcast Cubas co-hosted where he downplayed rape, defended Adolf Hitler, casually used the N-word and denigrated transgender people.

Cubas resigned late last month after Alaska Public Media and APM Reports confronted him and the governor about those statements.

Dunleavy recorded a video for the Alaska Family Council’s May 11 fundraiser. In it, he touted the newly formed Office of Family & Life, which Cubas led. The office, Dunleavy said, would “research the best practices, programs and approaches to support families — especially young families — and children in all stages of life.”

In Cubas’ five-minute address to the same group, he bemoaned the “insidious worship of the self” and said the political left “has been infiltrating our culture with its surreptitiously evil agenda” for more than 60 years. Cubas recorded his remarks in front of Alaska’s state seal.

Reached by phone last week, Cubas said he stood by his comments about “pro-abortionists” sacrificing children “at the altar of their false idols.” The false idol, he explained, is selfishness.

“The contemporary world, especially in the West, we do have a very self-centered, self-worshiping society,” Cubas said. He added: “Nobody really says that they have an abortion because it is better for something outside of themselves. It’s always geared toward the self.”

Cubas said his video had been uploaded to a site where staff from the governor’s office “could have watched it.”

“But I don’t think anybody did,” he added.

Grant Robinson, a spokesman for Dunleavy, declined to comment about the substance of Cubas’ video presented at the May 11 fundraiser.

There were “rumblings” about the charged language in Cubas’ video among attendees at the Alaska Family Council’s dinner, Jim Minnery, the group’s executive director said.

Minnery said he’s hoping to schedule a meeting with the governor’s office soon to discuss the future of the Office of Family & Life. A website Cubas had been developing to promote the office remains unpublished and his position is vacant.