Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
May 18, 2022
By Bill McCann
I’m certainly not an expert on the Christian Bible, but I don’t recall that Jesus ever said anything hateful about gay people or those of different racial backgrounds. He didn’t kick people out of the temple because they were gay or transgender. He kicked out the money changers, whom he said made the temple a “den of thieves.”
Heck, if Jesus were alive today, Republicans probably would call him their go-to buzzword – “socialist.” He cared about the poor and the downtrodden. He healed the sick and fed the masses. That’s what the nuns told us so many years ago in Sunday school.
Jesus also says in the Bible that the truth will set you free. That’s why I was particularly upset recently when an acquaintance sent me a copy of a fundraising mailout, disguised in part as a voter survey, from a far right religious group called the Faith and Freedom Coalition. The mailout was signed by the coalition’s founder Ralph Reed, a longtime Republican political consultant and lobbyist, who reportedly became a born-again Christian in 1983 after having a “religious experience” at a Washington, D.C. pub.
The mailout is full of falsehoods and twisted facts aimed at riling up recipients to vote for Republicans in the November midterm elections. The mailout praises serial commandment-breaker former President Donald Trump. It also begs for money, allegedly to register 6 million conservative Christian voters to help “save America from being destroyed forever by the Biden Administration and one-party radical Left control of Congress.”
You would think this “pro-family” mailout would give Reed and company an opportunity to expound on Republican plans to improve the lives of average families. Maybe include information about how Republicans will address issues that are most important to many families, such as high health care costs, inflation, poverty and climate change. But that’s not what these extremists are about. They’re not about building up. They’re about tearing down. They’re about pushing hate and divisiveness, which is consistent with current Republican political tactics.
One Republican objective is to oppose anything that Democrats support, even if it is good for Americans. So it’s no surprise that Reed’s letter and survey ignore real issues and focus instead on manufactured crises like critical race theory and what Reed calls the LGBTQ “agenda.” These and other GOP-generated crises distract from the fact that Republicans currently have no positive party platform for America. Their hot-button is hate. Hate liberals. Hate Democrats. Hate immigrants if they are Black or brown. Hate science when it interferes with their distorted version of the truth.
Reed says all we need to know about him and his coalition in his fundraising mailout, which states in part that the administration of President Joe Biden is “aggressively pushing America’s schools to adopt a radical, anti-America, anti-family, and anti-God curriculum.”
As an example, Reed says public schools across America are teaching a curriculum called critical race theory, which “brainwashes children as young as kindergarten to believe America is racist and evil.” That’s flat-out wrong. Critical race theory is not a curriculum. It’s a scholarly concept explaining that racism is embedded in U.S. history. It’s taught in law schools, not public elementary or high schools. But its basic premise is correct whether we choose to believe it or not. So, what’s wrong with teaching the truth about our history?
Similarly, Reed whines that “public schools are also brainwashing America’s children as young as kindergarten into the LGBTQ agenda,” apparently because some schools have library books on the subject. Wrong again. And just what agenda would that be, Mr. Reed? LGBTQ citizens wanting to have the same rights as everyone else? LGBTQ citizens wanting to live without being bullied or shunned or vilified by holier-than-thou hypocrites? Pro-family my foot.
McCann is a contributing columnist for the Advertiser. He is a retired journalist and may be reached at [email protected].
