Republicans Surrender Their Moral Authority
If zip-tying children and shoving a young mother to the ground as well as an 80-year-old man wasn't enough, shooting a peaceful pastor definitely cedes Republicans' moral authority on immigration.
If zip-tying children, shoving a young mother to the ground as well as an 80-year-old man wasn’t enough, shooting a peaceful pastor definitely cedes Republicans’ moral authority on immigration (and everything else).
This viral photo has been verified as “authentic and accurately captioned” and “is not the product of artificial-intelligence software, nor is it a digitally edited creation” says Snopes.
The Chicago pastor who was shot in the head — while wearing a clerical collar as he was praying — by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents is suing the Trump administration over First Amendment threats.
He has said he is not a political ideologue. He just knows what ICE is doing is wrong.
“I’m not a political ideologue, but I am very deeply rooted in my faith, in the ways that it calls me to show up in this moment as someone who can proclaim the good news and call these Ice agents into their right mind,” The Guardian reported him as saying.
Another protester, Reverand David Black of the First Presbyterian church of Chicago, said that he was pelted with about seven or eight “pepper exploding pellets” that hit his head, face, torso, arms and legs, while in a position of prayer.
Trump’s thugs shot pepper balls at the Presbyterian minister’s head while he prayed outside of an ICE detention facility in the Chicago area of Broadview, Illinois. The brutally aggressive act was caught on video that went viral. Documenting these atrocities is another critical form of resistance effort, and so ICE has been attacking journalists in Chicago as well.
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The Rev. David Black “looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray,” the National Catholic Reporter wrote. Black invited the agents to repentance, to receive salvation. They responded by pepper spraying him in his head, causing him to drop to his knees in pain. They continued to fire.
“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”
But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.
The ACLU lawsuit accuses ICE of using “wanton” and “escalating” violence against protesters and journalists in “a pattern of extreme brutality” designed to “silence the press and civilians.”
In recent weeks, however, the Trump Administration has sent federal officials and agents to brutally suppress free speech at the site through intentional and escalating violence, including the dangerous and indiscriminate use of near-lethal weapons such as tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper-balls, flash grenades, and other unwarranted and disproportionate tactics.
It’s obvious from this episode alone, but it joins so many others that it’s becoming impossible to name them all, that Trump is working against Christianity, despite claiming to be restoring the Christian lifestyle in this country (a country founded on separation of church and state, primarily through the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, to which Trump seems opposed).
Shooting a pastor who is praying conjures up the persecution of Jesus.
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