Religious right silence during pandemic proves they favor Donald Trump over integrity, common decency

Here's something we are missing in regards to the Trump Administration and the coronavirus - the voice of the evangelical conservative leaders, i.e. the religious right. 

Remember all of this:

 

As conspicuous as Trump's fumbling coronavirus response has been the absence/silence of religious right leaders.  Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, James Dobson, and the rest have in the past had no problem bragging about their access to the White House, namedropping the policies they are supporting, or conveniently appearing in pictures with Trump while either in prayer or dramatic repose.

As America has been in chaos and the Trump Administration has been in even more chaos during this pandemic, why are they so silent?

In all fairness, evangelical conservative leaders and their supporters could easily make the excuse that with the pandemic taking up time and attention, it would be better for them to stay away and allow Trump to lead the nation through it.

That would be suitable, except for the fact that Trump has not led the nation through this pandemic. It's been said and proven repeatedly how he downplayed the coronavirus and bungled the response, thereby leading us into a disastrous situation in which over one million Americans have contracted the coronavirus, over 90 thousand have died, and our unemployment has skyrocketed.

So let's be real. Graham, Dobson, Perkins have been playing M.I.A. not because they want Trump's attention devoted to combating the pandemic. They don't want to be in a position to have to criticize Trump. 

In times of crisis, the world has counted on our designated religious leaders to be vocal and unafraid advocates for justice. We have counted on them to articulate the words which speak truth to power and call out those leaders whose behavior threaten the safety and dignity of us all. From Martin Luther King, Jr. to Desmond Tutu to Oscar Romero, the list goes on and on when one thinks of religious leaders who've sacrificed popularity, status and even their own lives to be the voice of truth in a wilderness of madness.

But what can one do when some who are designated as religious leaders use their voices to flatter the one causing the madness? What can one do when they exploit their supposed moral proximity to God to assuage the egos of the incompetent? And especially in this case, what can one do when they stay deliberately silent  so as not to damage their vulgar relationships of convenience with abusers of power?

Religious right leaders know damn well that Trump majorly screwed up this one up. They know that his basic ineptness and lack of sensible leadership led us into this pit of madness where we have been for the past months. They know of the deaths, the unemployment, the fears spawned by it all. Most of all, they know if it were another president (especially Obama) who authored all of this chaos, they would have been vocal en masse. 

But they've chosen to be silent on those points. They've chosen to go another way because apparently this nation can't have too many conservative (albeit unqualified) judges or policies placing their definition of Christianity on a pedestal. And there are so many opportunities to pose for more pictures of them praying with Trump, particularly after the pandemic is over and they give him undeserved credit for marshaling us through it.