Thank you for your prompt response, Jeff, and I am happy to provide the claification that you requested.
1. One example of evangelicals demanding the right to disciminate in the public marketplace: the classic wedding cake debate. With all due respect, baking a cake is not a ministry, and cake decorators are not clergy. If Christian bakers and decorators wish to open a shop and advertise in the public sector, they should be willing to occasionally craft a rainbow flag in the frosting on one of their cakes.
2. Regarding the Protestant flag being waived by the mob attacking the capitol--I don't have a link to a picture of it. I can tell you that I saw it myself as I sat glued to the television that afternoon. And to corroborate what I am saying, let me offer the testmony of District of Columbia police officer Daniel Hodges, as he testified before a congressional committee on July 27th: "it was clear the terrorists perceived themselves to be Christians,” Hodges said. “I saw the Christian flag directly to my front. Another read, ‘Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president.’ Another: ‘Jesus is king.’ … Another had crossed rifles beneath a skull, emblazoned with the pattern of the American flag.”
3. I commend you for recognizing the 'tremendous harm' that Trump has done to this nation. I fear that none of us yet know or appreciate the depth and breadth of that harm. My remarks about you defending Trump referred to your explanation of why many Christians were willing to vote for him despite seeing many of his flaws ... it appeared that you found their reasoning to be an adequate explanation for the votes that they cast. I do not. I do agree, however, that you can be a conservative without supporting Trump ... there is, in fact, very little that he did to advance conservatism in the classic sense.
4. I beg to differ here. In 2016, we already knew that Trump was being pursued by the State of New York for fraudulent enterprises, that he had engaged in, quite literally, thousands of lawsuits, that he had been sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination, that he refused to be transparent about his personal finances and his tax history, that he continually belittled our allies and expressed admiration for dictators like Putin, that he had a long history of bankruptcies and that American banks were no longer willing to lend to him, that he was an unapologetic mysogynist ... in this case, it was not at all "hard to know" which candidate would best serve our country.
Tragically, with the decisive support of evangelical Christians, the nation chose the other one.
