You may say it. You may sing the song.
Do you ever imagine God getting that message and asking himself, "Why would I?"
I’m going to get Biblical, because I want to speak to the people in our country who claim to be Christians. This 4th, I imagine God responding, "You're imprisoning children. You're separating them from their parents and everyone they know and locking them up. They're going hungry. You're arguing in court that they shouldn't have soap, toothbrushes, blankets or beds. Some of them are sick. Some of them have already died in the US custody."
I imagine him saying, "How can you ask that of me, when you allow your country to treat children this way?"
He doesn't call only American children his children. He doesn't call only white children his children. The Bible says all are his children, made in his image. It says, What you have done to the least of them, you have done to me.
We like to call ourselves the greatest country on earth, but if any other country treated children this way, we'd be horrified. We'd condemn them. We'd say it's inhuman.
I've argued with people who say, But Obama did it. No, he didn't, but even if he did, are you saying it's okay now that Trump is doing it? Is it still not an awful thing to do? Are you doing anything to condemn it?
I've heard people say, They broke the law.
The children absolutely didn't. The children are innocent, and since when did we punish children for things their parents did? I won't even try to argue that coming to the US border and asking for asylum is legal. I doubt I could get anyone who believes it isn't go actually look up the law and find out for themselves.
Either way, the children are innocent.
I've heard people say, Their parents shouldn't put them in such a dangerous position.
Doesn't that make you wonder why their parents did? People have always died trying to cross the US border from Mexico, and yet, people keep trying. What would make them take their children on such a dangerous journey?
Because they're fleeing a situation that's even more dangerous. They're trying to get their children to a safe place.
You can argue they have no right to come here, but even if they don't, their children are innocent. They don't deserve to be locked up. No little child does.
Can we just agree on that one, small principle? That innocent children do not deserve to be locked up?
You can say, We have to do this to keep people from continuing to come here.
So, you mean if it takes separating innocent children from their parents and imprisoning them -- just to make you feel safe in America -- you're okay with that? If some of those children have to die, you’re okay with that, too?
That you deserve to feel safe more than children deserve not to be taken away from their parents and imprisoned? Or to even live?
Why do your need to feel safe trump their need to not be taken from their parents or imprisoned?
What about your life is more valuable than theirs? Please, explain this to me.
Because that's why people around the world hate Americans. They don't have us for our freedom. They hate us because time after time, we've decided that our needs for things like oil to keep our economy running smoothly or our need to feel safe -- is more important than other people's need not to have their country become a war zone, not to have it bombed, not to have their children die as collateral damage to our wars.
That's why people come to hate Americans.
Now some of us have decided that we need to keep desperate people from crossing our borders, and if the price is imprisoning and mistreating other people's innocent children, we're okay with that.
And some of us still think God is okay with it, too.
I don't think he is.