Conservative evangelicals gladly turn their backs on integrity for the power Trump gives them

They can deny it all they want, but evangelicals have turned their backs on their faith to embrace Trump.

There is one itsy-bitsy, nonetheless significant positive of Trump being in the White House.

The rest of the country is seeing what the LGBTQ community has always known about the religious right. For all of their talk about values, morals, and their "Judeo-Christian" faith, their efforts have solely been about their desire to control lives and gaining power.

And they simply don't care what avenue they travel to get that power.  I don't think I'll ever get tired of these "why does the religious right support someone as immoral as Donald Trump" articles like the one Politico recently published:

Several senior White House officials say they've never heard Trump reference the Bible privately or pray in the Oval Office — even though he has, at times, asked Vice President Mike Pence to pray. He swears frequently, even startling some aides with his coarse language. He was famously caught on tape saying he could grab women by their genitals because he is famous. In New York, he was well-known for cheating on his wives and encouraging coverage of his sex life in the tabloids. 

Though he has declared the Bible to be his favorite book, just ahead of his autobiography, he has not exhibited a deep knowledge of it. On the campaign trail, one of his more famous moments was calling the communion "my little wine and my little cracker" and incorrectly calling Second Corinthians "Two Corinthians." 

Yet he has told advisers he sees evangelicals as among his most important constituencies, and he has enjoyed fervent support, as evidenced by another rapturous reception on Friday at the Values Voter Summit. A Reuters poll in September showed more than 60 percent of white evangelicals back Trump, far higher than his overall approval rating, which has often fallen below 40 percent. 

“Trump has been focused like a laser beam on the evangelical vote since the day he entered the presidential race in June 2015, and that has never changed," said Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, who said Trump called religious leaders repeatedly during the campaign.

Several people who know Trump say he appreciates that evangelicals have been loyal to him — and he wants to keep them in the fold, almost as he would valuable business customers.

It gets even better:

. . . several religious leaders said, they feel Trump is fighting for them in a cultural war that has been heading in the other direction. 

"They believe they have a commander in chief that is effectively using the bully pulpit to advance a Judeo-Christian framework that has been minimized, scrutinized and ostracized for the last few decades," said David Brody, who has enjoyed tremendous access to White House officials as a correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network. He says his viewers overwhelmingly support Trump and see him as unfairly under attack, a view shared by a dozen religious leaders interviewed for this story.

Seems to me that if these so-called religious people can fold up their supposed integrity to support Trump with all of his deliberate warts and all, whatever faith they practice probably should be minimized and shunned.

'Trump jokes about Pence wanting to hang gays' & other Mon midday news briefs

Trump’s sick ‘joke’ about how much Pence hates LGBTQ people - Again Trump opens his big mouth and makes a Freudian slip. We all know Pence's record on the LGBTQ community. And none of it is good. It's a tasteless joke on its own but gets even more tasteless when one remembers that Trump gave a speech last weekend to a room full of people who want to, at the very least, criminalize homosexuality. 

The Danger of President Pence - Speaking of Pence, here is the article which documents Trump's "joke."

Sessions Confounds Critics By Aiding Murder Prosecution In LGBTQ Case - Even a wolf in sheep's clothing gets caught up and starts to bleat every now and then. 

Australian Children's Rights Groups Say Yes To Marriage Equality - Meanwhile in Australia, we are still fighting. 

 Gay lawmakers create first LGBTQ caucus in Arizona Legislature - Long overdue.

Pastor calls Values Voter Summit 'heretical extremism . . . perpetrating a fraud'

There has been a justifiable complaint that if last weekend's Values Voter Summit isn't representative of all Christians, then why don't other Christians, particularly Christian leaders,  speak out against it.

One has publicly spoken against it and his words were blistering in their tone and accuracy. William Barber is a minister in North Carolina and a community leader who is heavily involved in progressive activism. And unlike other ministers who hide behind twitter, Barber takes an active role in leading protests and getting arrested for his beliefs.

Joy Reid conducted an interview with him Saturday in which he called out the Values Voter Summit for a multitude of things, including, as he puts it, replacing the values of Christ for cash.

" . . . from Jeremiah 22 to Jesus and Matthew 25, Christian values for nations and political leaders has to do with love and justice, equality, stopping exploitation of the vulnerable, caring for the poor, caring for children, welcoming immigrants, helping the sick and loving all, And by these standards, the so-called Values Summit is not about Judeo-Christian values, it’s not about Christianity, but the values of a heretical rhetorical extremism funded by a whole lot of money, perpetrating a fraud on the American people.”

In addition, he also called out Trump for being the first president to address the group.

“What the president did was irreligious, it is an anathema to Christian values. He boasted about taking health care, that’s not Christian. He promoted arrogance, he promoted warmongering — these are not Christian values — and it’s high time that we call it out,”