Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:00 pm
Have you noticed that the Religious Right’s obsession with Donald Trump resembles their obsession with porn? They’re not supposed to touch it, but they can’t keep their hands off it. Yes. I am talking about porn. Mostly.
Seriously, did you ever wondered what Duck Dynasty’s star hater, Phil Robertson, could teach Donald Trump about Christian love? Basically, his message is, as told the other day to The Hollywood Reporter, hate everything that isn’t Robertson’s type of Christianity:
“When you remove the God of the Bible and suppress the truth and allow men and women to determine right and wrong, historically speaking, it always ends in carnage and murder — Hitler, the Caesars of Rome, the French Revolution, ISIS. Man, there has been a slaughterhouse on planet Earth, and the common denominator is the removal of God.â€
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Trump, one of the biggest sinners around, waved his Bible around and talked about communion like it was a feast of “little crackers” and “little wine” but the removal of God is the problem?
Robertson complains about the French Revolution but he doesn’t mention the Christian landscape that gave rise to it. All that Christian love shown by Europe’s 1 Percent for the needy. Events don’t happen in a vacuum.
Yet asked by The Hollywood Reporter if he’d back Trump, Robertson said,
“I’ll go with the platform that I discovered when I was 28. I looked at the Democrats and the Republicans, and at least the Republicans aren’t for killing their children or for perversion, so I’m a Republican. So I’ll back old Donald.”
Robertson explained to his fellow fact-challenged bigots on Fox & Friends Wednesday, “Now I’m on the Trump train & I’ll do everything I can to help him. We have to be loyal to the party.” He told the hosts that he could make Trump a better man:
“I’ll make a valiant attempt behind the scenes, you understand, to sit down with Donald with a Bible in between us, and I might can help him along with concepts like loving your enemies, loving your god, loving your neighbor. Even your enemies, forgive them and move on. I may can help him in that area. I can see it now, Trump wins and the camera’s panning and his spiritual advisor is me.â€
PHIL ROBERTSON: Now I'm on the Trump train & I'll do everything I can to help him. We have to be loyal to the party.https://t.co/Co47trKrQx
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) May 18, 2016
Loving your neighbor. Right. Unless he is gay or transgender or worships the wrong god or no god. Well, without hypocrisy there would be no Religious Right.
Technically, the Caesars of Rome had more gods than Robertson does, and there were plenty of Christian Caesars to follow the Pagan ones, men who made some of the earlier Caesars look like paragons of virtue. Having Robertson’s god doesn’t magically bestow human decency or goodness, no matter what people like Robertson tell you.
In fact, what the Founding Fathers were hoping to spare America was an escape from Christian-spawned religious violence that had plagued Europe for centuries. The common denominator there is not the removal of God, but his presence. In all sorts of forms disagreeable to other Christians, who, like Robertson, insist everyone see God the way he sees God.
Speaking of the Enlightenment, on top of bad religion, add some bad history:
“The founding fathers were godly men, and I’m no different. Our founders said once your religion goes, then your morality goes, then your freedom goes, and you see with Bernie Sanders they’re wanting to get rid of the Republic and replace it with socialism. America is floundering in sin, and I know that’s a unique word in your part of the country. If you don’t see the decadence around you, dude, promoted by Miley Cyrus and others in Hollywood, then I don’t know what to tell you. If you got an argument in favor of decadence, then give it to me.â€
He had some hate for Hillary Clinton as well:
“Her record is long, and she’s already proven herself. I know which way we’ll go with her, but I’m not sure with Donald. And remember, I’m a hunter. We shoot squirrels and ducks and eat ’em, and she says she’ll take our guns. All we’re doing is shooting targets, and alligators and cottonmouth snakes, and she wants to take that away from us?â€
Hillary Clinton has, of course, never said she’d take Robertson’s guns. Nobody has said anything about taking away guns except for Republicans who promise that people who never said they will take away guns will never be permitted to take away guns. These guys manufacture facts we go. They’d have to shut up otherwise because they’d have nothing to complain about.
Naturally, Robertson doesn’t like the idea of gays, lesbians, and transgenders either: “What’s behind it is removing male and female, like with same-sex marriage, once you get that out of the way, what you open the door for is sexual free-for-all, and depravity goes mainstream.â€
Depravities? You mean like your idea of marrying someone’s 15-year-old daughter?
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
