There is an audio of his remarks at the Birmingham News site. Also there is a partial transcript. He had some very weird things to say about the pay of teachers and legislators.
I find it scary that someone who thinks like this could be a state senator with the power to make changes to retirement systems.
God's lawyer to Shadrack: Cease and Desist!
"It's a Biblical principle," you said. "If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach..."
"If you don't keep that in balance, you're going to attract people who are not called, who don't need to be teaching our children."
Let me sum it up. You said Alabama must pay public servants more to keep them honest. You said Alabama must pay teachers less to keep them pure, and you invoked The Bible to say it.
In the audio at the very end he says something even more weird. It's hard to tell what the audience asked, but his answer can be clearly heard.
When an audience member asked about the retirement system, you ended your speech this way:
"Well you know what," you said. "I think we're going to be raptured out of here before it comes that time for you anyway."
How convenient to believe that way. Forget about planning for retirement, the rapture may come.
McGill Responds to Controversies
McGill tried to defend his remarks, and that just made it worse. His views of religion and state stood out even more clearly though.
McGill says that his remarks at the prayer breakfast made sense to those in attendance, but came out wrong when printed in the paper. "The point that I was trying to make in the speech is simply that .. Things ought to be in balance. I believe God made everything to be in balance. He weighed the Earth and the valley and the mountains and the hills on a scale to keep them in balance because he knew he was going to be spinning it real fast, so that's the jist of it."
I agree with the Birmingham News about wanting McGill to please stop talking.
"Today, he had no regrets over the statement and remains steadfast. "Separation of Church and state is not in the constitution." McGill said. "I don't believe we need to separate God from government. The Bible even says that one day the government will be on his shoulders, meaning Jesus Christ's shoulders, so I don't know exactly what that means, but I know that we don't need to separate the two, that we are a godly nation and a biblically based nation, so I do not support that separation."
A big AMEN to Hunter in this Daily Kos post.
About McGill and others. I so agree.
A lack of empathy explains a lot of it. A nearly sociopathic lack of empathy or concern for others would explain a great deal of it indeed, especially among many conservative leaders. As supposed ideology, however, I have no patience for it anymore. I used to at least respect the notion of conservatism as philosophy, and at least recognize some raw pragmatic value behind the premise, but this version of conservatism is overtly regressive, not conservative. It lacks any coherent point other than the self-centeredness of the practitioner.
But then I hear people like Alabama State Sen. Shadrack McGill talking about how paying teachers a living wage would be violating a "Biblical principle," while paying legislators a living wage is a damn fine idea, and the far simpler explanation rears its head. Most of these people aren't ideological about anything. They're just profoundly stupid people. They're not conservative, they're just self-indulgent scolds or self-interested collectors of public power. They're only "conservative" because that's the ideology that will best support stringing together random words to accomplish those goals.
Well said.
Crossposted at Twitter