Ralph Reed: If Christians Don't Get Trump Re-Elected 'It Will Be Open Season' on Churches

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Religious right activist Ralph Reed appeared on Stephen Strang’s podcast yesterday, where he warned that if Christians don’t come out in record numbers to ensure the reelection of President Donald Trump in 2020, they will face wholesale persecution from Democrats and they will deserve it.

Strang claimed that “life as we know it as Christians” would be forever changed if Trump does not win.

“It’s going to be bad news, and Christians have to realize that they cannot be complacent,” he said. “[Trump] is our champion and he has come through on his promises again and again, and we’ve got to get him back into a second term to finish what he’s started and also to stop the other side.”

Reed readily agreed, saying that Trump deserves the support of Christians because of what he has done regarding Israel and the judiciary.

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2019/11/religious-right-activist-ralph-reed-if-christians-dont-get-trump-re-elected-it-will-be-open-season-on-churches/#.XcGyMORWpQE.twitter

[UT_democrat]

1. The opiate of the masses

Needs to be regulated

[crickets]

63. The opiate of the masses needs to be TAXED. nt

[lastlib]

2. If tRump is [their] champion, then they're f*cked anyway.

He will throw anyone under the bus for his own benefit--what makes xtians think they wouldn't be treated likewise?

[gibraltar72]

3. Reason 55 to vote blue.

[el_bryanto]

10. Unless of course you are religious and attend church

But fortunately I think that Ralph Reed is full of shit on this one - Church's aren't going anywhere, and Democrats don't even really want to destroy them.

Bryant
http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[gibraltar72]

14. Recovering Evangelical here.

[3catwoman3]

35. May your recovery be prompt, thorough and lasting.

A votre sante! (sorry - I don’t know how to do the pronunciation marks)

[SCantiGOP]

28. "...don't really want to destroy them" ???

Every Democrat I know, even those who are adamant atheists, fully accept the First Amendment. There is not a single case of any Democratic administration trying to shut down churches or deny religious freedom.
What Reed is talking about is continuing the GOP push to destroy the 1st amendment by saying that Christian priorities should be implemented by the government.

[gibraltar72]

38. How about if we just weaken them

to the point they can be drowned in a bathtub??

[keithbvadu2]

40. Freedom of religion Pence

Freedom of religion Pence

[atreides1]

4. He's wrong!!!

It'll be open season on his type of "Christian", the hypocrites, the haters, the wanna be daughter f**kers...and I hope there isn't a limit on them...

[AllaN01Bear]

7. thank you thank you thank you. his kind of "christian" never has and never will

represent me.

[Thomas Hurt]

5. christofascist theocrat paranoia and bloviating

but Reed and his ilk have allied themselves with an amoral pig who wants to bring authoritarian dictatorship to the US.

Does he think people will ignore that cr@p?

[Dave Starsky]

6. You know what's really killing churches? These fucking hypocrites.

Greedy, lascivious slimeballs like Ralph Reed, Franklin Graham, etc.

Those of us who have been to church a few times know what Jesus stood for, and it was far removed from any of their bullshit.

[Initech]

13. Yeah exactly. I hope that people are finally waking up to their greed and grifting.

Not to mention their uncontrollable lust for absolute power. Which is why they still stand behind this lunatic. They think that the president is like a god but he really isn't.

If Trump doesn't get reelected, it's not going to be open season on the church. People will just leave and ignore these pricks if they get tired of their schtick. No matter is going to hunt them for sport or anything.

[Initech]

8. People like Ralph Reed are the reason why the fastest growing religion in the world is atheism.

Keep digging that hole there guys...

[gratuitous]

9. No issues to run on, no accomplishments to tout, what's left? PH34R!!!

As their tangerine messiah would tweet: Sad!

[keithbvadu2]

43. Had to look it up

Had to look it up

ph34r (pheer)
a powerfull feeling realized or felt at the point of inevitable harm or death. Normally associated with fear, it is more closely related to a extreme feeling of anticipation.
Source: urbandictionary.com

[GoCubsGo]

11. Look who just crawled out from under his rock...

I had hoped that sack of shit had disappeared permanently. Guess not. Must've spotted a new group of suckers to con.

[ProfessorGAC]

56. I Was Sharing Your Hope

A desperate attempt to return to mainstream relevance, perhaps?

[dalton99a]

12. Hate-mongering greedy parasites should be taxed.

[Garrett78]

15. Funny how that fear isn't shared by any of the Black or white liberal Christians I know.

[DavidDvorkin]

16. And?

[DFW]

17. "life as we know it as Christians" would be forever changed--ha! You DON'T know life as a Christian

As for open season on churches--well, I'm no Republican, so I do not advocate burning them down or blowing them up. However, converting them into low-cost housing, schools or community centers free of any religious overtones--now THAT is a change I could live with.

As for "life as a Christian," what a joke. These sleazeball con men should open up a Bible and read what their boy Jesus was supposed to have said about how to live life--sharing what they have, advocating peace, humbly refusing the pursuit of riches and power--everything Ralph Reed's kind of "Christian" avoids like the plague.

[Javaman]

18. um, ralphy boy? the right wing has had an open season on churches since forever...

so shut up you racist dumb fuck.

[roamer65]

19. Poor babies, they're so persecuted.

Keep it up and they will really find out what’s it’s really like to be persecuted.

Please rapture out of here, scumbags.

[NurseJackie]

20. What's he hiding?

[Thunderbeast]

21. And how is THAT such a problem?

If you are spiritually guided to live a generous, moral life, then GOOD ON YOU.

If on the other hand, you use the church to become wealthy and politically powerful, then you should find other meaningful work and your church building re-purposed to help the victims of your generations of scams.

If you use your pulpit to spread bigotry and homophobia, society should condemn you to a miserable existence with no available mouthpiece.

[Goodheart]

22. Dear Mr. Reed, I truly hope so.

Your goddamned churches are the bane of civilization.

[yellowcanine]

23. Why do we care what that little toad says? (Apologies to real toads everywhere)

[Crunchy Frog]

44. Because some of the rubes buy what that charlatan says.

[NCLefty]

24. This same turd said Obama shouldn't tie tax policy to biblical teachings.

"Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition said that for the president to tie his tax policy to Jesus’s teachings 'is theologically threadbare and straining credulity.' "

So they demand everyone adhere to the bible relentlessly, unless they want to attack you for it. Cherry-picking at its finest.

[Vinca]

25. Wonder how many hungry people Ralph has fed today.

Wonder how many nails he pounded in at a Habitat house. I really wonder why these people aren't rabid followers of Jimmy Carter. Trump is less of a Christian than I am and I call myself an atheist.

[EleanorR]

26. Just another conman trying to protect his $$

It's all about the money.

[keithbvadu2]

45. his $$

Pat Robertson and his ilk are CBR - Cash Based Religion.

Judas was an early modern day conservative disciple.

Judas got 30 pieces of silver, but just once, for selling Christ.

Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker and their ilk get millions of dollars repeatedly for selling Christ.

Judas was a fool for doing a one-time sale.

[Loge23]

27. Meanwhile, the Fascist Right has already started

Isn't it about every other day now we hear of yet another fascist lunatic arrested for planning and/or executing some deadly mayhem?
Now we have a white nationalist evangelical screaming about fantasy attacks.

How far gone are we?

[LuvNewcastle]

49. The conspiracy mongers have them all stirred up.

A lot of them think they're in imminent danger if the Democrats take over. They've been like that for a long time, though. I remember when I was a kid I had a friend whose mother told him that one day the government would send soldiers to take away everyone's Bibles. They teach shit like that in these fundagelical churches and the congregations eat it up because it makes them think that they're suffering for the Lord. They don't understand that all this talk is to keep them scared so they're easier to control. It's a sad situation, and there was bound to be a clash one day between the fundagelicals and the sane people. Some of them are praying for Armageddon, for fuck's sake.

[Loge23]

60. Sounds crazy but it's happening! (eom)

[crickets]

64. +1

[redstatebluegirl]

29. Ralph Reed and his ilk are why organized religion is dying.

[Downtown Hound]

30. LOL. If only...

But somehow, I doubt it.

[struggle4progress]

31. Wednesday 4 November 2020: Celebrate "Feed Ralph Reed to the Lions" day!

Thursday 5 November 2020: Contribute to "International Campaign to Save Lions from Food Poisoning"

[smirkymonkey]

32. It will be open season on phony, evangelical, hate-mongering, predatory churches only.

And most of us don't have a problem with that. Bring it on!

[Mc Mike]

33. Haven't heard from that evil weasel in a while.

[Buzz cook]

34. Open season on synagogues and mosques if Trump wins

Given the rise in violence against people who worship the wrong god or the right god in the wrong way.

[Frustratedlady]

36. What am I missing? Why can't I understand the thinking of this brand of Christians?

This absolutely blows my mind UNLESS the evangelicals/Christians are using Trump as an example for How Not To Live Your Life If You Are Following Jesus' Teachings:101? That's the only reasoning I can come up with.

[stopbush]

37. Well, one can certainly hope!

[LiberalFighter]

39. I hope there will be open season. Starting with him. :) :) :)

[Wounded Bear]

41. Fear! Fire! Foes!

[Crunchy Frog]

42. I'm looking forward to watching lions eat them.

[Mopar151]

46. Xtra - xtian!

Like the Excessively White Men, they are the mortal enemy of the "cause" they proclaim so loudly.

[Prosper]

47. He makes a false assumption. More Christians voted against

Trump than for him. Elevating a small portion of radical right wing Christians to representing all Christians is false.

[spanone]

48. In other words, it will impact ralphie reed's income.

[TeamPooka]

50. Vote for our literal Golden Idol, Christians!

[The Genealogist]

51. Whipping up votes by scaring the crap out of Christians

What Democrat is proposing anything like closing down churches? No, Ralph, if anything is going to close down your churches it is going to be lack of funds to pay the mortgages on the buildings. More and more people are moving away from Christianity, likely in many cases because they don't like what it has become in the hands of people like Ralph Reed.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

52. F**k off Reed

Christians haven't been persecuted in this country, they certainly aren't being persecuted now, and they won't be persecuted when Trump is no longer in office. A number of them, however, are busy 24-7-365 persecuting others

BTW how did he not get prosecuted for his past collaborations with Jack Abramhoff and his corrupt financial schemes?

[MineralMan]

53. Yeah. I'm just itching to disrupt church services, as soon as Trump isn't President.

I'm an atheist after all, right? All Democrats are atheists, right?

[sop]

54. False prophets like Ralph Reed remind me of the following quote:

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg

[TheRealNorth]

55. What he was really saying between the lines...

Re-elect Trump and it will be open season on liberals, Muslims, gays, and anyone else you don't like.

[MFGsunny]

57. Spare me the blasphemy, Ralph.

Some of us remember you from your days of the Christian Right .... when you were neither!

[Drahthaardogs]

58. You're not Christian anyway

The "born again" version of Christ is so far removed from the Orthodox, it cannot be called the same thing.

[JHB]

59. Ahh, the old filthy buddy of Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist

Last edited Tue Nov 12, 2019, 04:27 PM - Edit history (1)

He's spent his entire career as a political grifter. To name just one, there was the time he used his Evangelical contacts to whip up resistance to block initiatives to open casinos an Internet gambling. Out of Christian principle, or concern about gambling addictions? Naaaaaw! It was to prevent new locations from competing other casinos he was getting paid by.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Reed

Reed was named in the scandal arising from lobbying work performed by Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian gambling tribes. E-mails released by federal investigators in June 2005 revealed that Reed secretly accepted payments from Abramoff to lobby against Indian casino gambling and oppose an Alabama education lottery.[23] Additional e-mails released in November 2005 show that Reed also worked for another Abramoff client seeking to block a congressional ban on Internet gambling. These cases are being investigated by multiple federal and state grand juries and by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Abramoff pleaded guilty to three felony counts in federal court, raising the prospects of Abramoff testifying against others.

Those e-mails and other evidence revealed the participation of the Christian Coalition in the alleged fraud, particularly the Alabama chapter of the Christian Coalition, which received large amounts of donations from the casino money. It is alleged that Abramoff engaged Reed to set up an anti-gambling campaign to include the U.S. Family Network, the Christian Coalition, and Focus on the Family in order to frighten the tribes into spending as much as $82 million for Abramoff to lobby on their behalf. To represent him in connection with the scandal, Reed retained defense attorney W. Neil Eggleston, then of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. Eggleston served as White House associate counsel during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

In 2004, Reed confirmed that he had been paid more than $1 million in fees by lobbyists working on behalf of American Indian casinos.[29]
***

On June 22, 2006, the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs released its final report on the scandal.[32] The report said that Reed had used his contacts to conservative Christian groups to prevent the opening or expansion of casinos competing with the casinos operated by Abramoff’s clients from 1998 to 2002 and that he had been paid a total of $5.3 million through Abramoff’s law firm and from organizations controlled by Abramoff’s partner Michael Scanlon.[33][34] The report did not accuse Reed of having known about Abramoff's illegal activities.[33]

The report further states that under the guidance of the Mississippi Choctaw tribe's planner, Nell Rogers, the tribe agreed to launder money because "Ralph Reed did not want to be paid directly by a tribe with gaming interests." It also states that Reed used non-profits, like Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, as pass-throughs to disguise the origin of the funds, and that "the structure was recommended by Jack Abramoff to accommodate Mr. Reed’s political concerns."[32]

[LakeArenal]

61. What about the actual events like

Burning primarily Black Christian churches.
Or the Synagogues? Or the Mosques?
Oh that’s right only the first is a church.

I saw a weird sign for a “Christian Church”.

Is there any other kind of church?

[Vogon_Glory]

62. Heavens! If Orange Julius is ousted from power, people might start expecting

Evangelical conservatives to start acting like REAL Christians!