Most of us remember this part of a poem from our school days:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door![1]
Commonly associated with the Statue of Liberty, she who welcomed many a desperate family from abroad over the years, it’s quite a contrast to the scrapingly (right along my nerves) worldly view of Pastor Robert Jeffress of megachurch First Baptist Dallas, justifying the views of President Donald “shithole” Trump, as reported by WaPo:
Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, a prominent Southern Baptist church, said that while he would not have used the same language Trump did, he agrees with the president’s perspective.
“What a lot of people miss is, America is not a church where everyone should be welcomed regardless of race and background,” Jeffress said. “I’m glad Trump understands the difference between a church and country. I support his views 100 percent, even though as a pastor I can’t use that language.”
The United States, Jeffress said, has every right to restrict immigration according to whatever criteria it establishes, including race or other qualifications. “The country has the right to establish what would benefit our nation the most,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything racist about it at all.”
America is not obligated to accept people based on need, such as the case with refugees, he said. “I wouldn’t let the language obscure the point he’s making: Why would we allow people who will not benefit our country?” Jeffress said. “We have the right to screen [refugees] based on the economic benefit they might bring, and we can establish the criteria we want to use.”
For a country that was founded on a notion of freedom, fought a ruinous Civil War on that notion of freedom, received and celebrated the Statue of Liberty on that notion of freedom, and invited in refugees on that notion of liberty – all implemented in various flawed manners, of course – it seems the height of hypocrisy to deny that notion of freedom in immigration now. And, worse, from a pastor of religious tradition which, at least in its most basic traditions[2], has been the champion of those least powerful in the world, the leper, the poor, the downtrodden, the refugee, to hear his tongue wrap around that most antithetical to his tradition is shocking and appalling.
I guess his addiction to power has led him down different paths.
For the interested, Steve Benen notes how the White House evangelical advisory council has, for the most part, clung to their positions of influence. That it exists in the first place seems inappropriate to me; that they cling despite the shitstorm through which they’re flying is appalling and speaks to their addiction to prestige and influence.
1Today I learned something new: the poem we hear about in school is part of a larger poem by Emma Lazarus. From How Tall Is The Statue Of Liberty:
New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
2In the interests of full disclosure, I am an agnostic, and have been my entire life. Nevertheless, it doesn’t require an initiate to discern the basic principles of the sect.
