Bishop Budde

 

Anglican Bishop Mariann Budde

I cannot look at my X feed currently, because it is flooded by video postings of that female Anglican Bishop, Mariann Budde lecturing Donald Trump in her inauguration sermon. I really can’t stand to hear her voice, so full of self-righteousness.

I am happy to hear Trump has demanded a public apology from the Anglican/Episcopal Church.

She called on Trump to “have mercy on the people who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.” I had to find the written transcript in order to stand to look that up.

This is the typical leftist fallacy, that we are responsible for the feelings of others, even if our actions are reasonable and those feelings are unreasonable. Feelings trump facts. Or at least, we are responsible for the feelings of certain favoured groups, while our own feelings must be suppressed. 

There is of course no rational or sane reason for any gay or lesbian or transgender person to fear for their life because of anything Donald Trump or the government might do. If they fear for their lives, that cruelty has been inflicted on them by ideologues and propagandists like Budde, who are terrorizing them with phantoms, conspiracy theories, and black legends, not Trump.

Many young people might now be rescued from mutilation and sterilization because of Trump’s policies refusing to officially recognize multiple genders and gender switching. Many women and girls might be freed from legitimate and rational fears of rape by supposed transgenders in their bathrooms, locker rooms, or prison cells; and physical injury from being forced to compete with them in sport.

Nor are people who imagine themselves to be “transgender” caused any harm by these measures—let alone anyone who is gay or lesbian. They are, at most, only losing special privileges they had been given, to choose which bathroom they wanted to use, which sports league they wanted to compete in, and so forth. The rest of us cannot.

There is a fundamental but always overlooked principle here. The bishop claims to be calling on Trump to have mercy on the powerless. But the powerless in a society are never those given special acknowledgement and preferences by government, by definition. The powerless will be the ones the government is not acknowledging, nor supporting, or those it is even actively suppressing. Currently, the unborn, for example, or white males, or to some extent the working class. Groups to whom Trump has brought some hope, and whom I daresay Budde probably distains. Ironically, Christians are also among those groups. Making Budde a Judas figure.

Budde then asks Trump to show mercy on “The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals.” Interesting perspective: Budde clearly sees herself as a member of the elite, the upper class. In her mind she owns the crops, the office buildings; she eats in restaurants. Trump is supported by just these people, the poorest of the working class, because he is taking their perspective and trying to help:  by cracking down on illegal immigration. Illegal immigration forces down the wages of the poor, to the advantage of the rich.

“They…may not be citizens or have the proper documentation,” she goes on to say. “But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”

Trump wants to stop illegal immigration, and deport illegal immigrants. He also says he wants to let in more immigrants. Budde does not seem to understand this. By definition, 100% of illegal immigrants are indeed criminals. Budde does not grasp the distinction between legal and illegal immigration; it suggests she also cannot distinguish between sin and virtue. Or refuses to make such distinctions. This is troubling in a prominent member of the clergy. It marks her as a false shepherd, someone leading her flock astray.

“I ask,” she continues, “that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

Of course, America should offer asylum to those fleeing persecution, as America always has, more than any other nation. And there is no indication that Trump would change this policy, as she seems to imply. 

But it is a different matter to offer asylum to those fleeing war zones. Our current governments do not seem to understand this. Offering asylum to both sides in some distant war is to import the war. It is hard to imagine a more stupid immigration policy.

Then too, if you restrict your offer of asylum to one side, the one you consider the victim in the war, you are doing harm to that side. You are depriving them of needed soldiers by importing their young men. Unless you restrict your offer to women and children.

And of course it is even worse if you restrict asylum to the side you feel is doing harm. Give asylum to Nazis or belligerent aggressors, and what do you think you are importing?

I do believe the bishop is quite stupid. But that is only a partial defense. She is also immoral, and, worse than that, masquerading as a religious person, indeed a religious authority, to lead others astray.

The deepest pits of Hell are reserved for such Pharisees.