The featured image above gained attention when it was thought to be a picture of Brian Kemp (left) and Gregory McMichael (right).

Kemp, former Georgia Secretary of State, is best known for stealing the governorship from Stacey Abrams, refusing to recuse himself from overseeing an election in which he was a candidate.  His crimes include a multitude of GOP-type voter suppression techniques.

McMichael is the man who, along with his son, Travis stalked and murdered Ahmaud Arbery.

The picture, however, was miscaptioned.

The guy in the yellow shirt is a different racist dickhead named Jim Stachowiak, from whom Kemp later tried to distance himself, even though the message on Stachowiak’s shirt was clear.

The black letters boldly emblazoned on Stachowiak’s yellow shirt proclaim, ALLAH IS NOT GOD.

To me, rumination about the nature or existence of God is pointless.  It’s mental masturbation without the possibility of release.

I capitalize the word “God,”  out of respect for those who believe.  Isn’t that the point of the 1st Amendment?

We have a constitutional right to believe or not believe anything we choose and an obligation to respect the beliefs of others.

Some of us, however, are not so inclined.  Some of us think that the beliefs of others are irrelevant and/or evil and that if we can not dictate their actions based upon our beliefs, then our religious freedom is being abridged.

The some of us to whom I refer are the Religious Right.  Evangelicals and bible thumpers of all stripes who have weaponized religion to subjugate those who don’t share their beliefs.

They pretend to be persecuted while working feverishly to limit the freedom of others to live lives of their choosing.

For the record, IT WAS NEVER ILLEGAL TO SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Any institution that chose to switch to the less faith based greeting of Happy Holidays did so out of an outsized supplication to political correctness.

I’ve always said Merry Christmas and, like Bill Murray in Scrooged, enjoy that one time of the year when we make an effort to be a little nicer, a little more generous of spirit.

Those on the right are big on appropriating things for themselves.

They were the party of law and order, until they collectively decided that they would not hold their president accountable for the most lawless administration in American history.

They were the party of military support, until their president began trashing American heroes, military leaders and Gold Star families.

They are the party that gets to decide what it is to be an American and they do it at rallies where they fly Nazi and Confederate flags.

They were staunch opponents of Vladimir Putin until he started running our foreign and domestic policies through his orange puppet.

There’s about a billion and half Muslims in the world, some three and half million of them living here in the United States.  Who is Jim Stachowiak to tell them that their God is not real?

In the second chapter of the Koran it says, And your Allah is One Allah. There is no god but He, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

The Torah makes the same claim, as does the New Testament.  As a point of fact, IT WAS MAN WHO DECIDED THAT JESUS WAS A DEITY.

Followers of Jesus  did that with the help of a heathen named Constantine who needed to consolidate his power as emperor of Rome.

I’ve been critical of Christians of late, but not for their beliefs, rather for their betrayal of those beliefs.  If you call yourself Christian, you have to stand up to those who turn away from some of his most basic teachings, the most basic virtues of humanity.

Christ urged his followers to heal the sick, not to take away their access to health care.  He preached feeding the hungry, not ending food assistance programs.

He said to welcome strangers and give shelter to the those in need.  Does that sound like Donald Trump, Brian Kemp or even Pat Robertson?

By turning away from his principles, you marginalize the guy you say is your savior.  Attacking the beliefs of others doesn’t demonstrate devotion to yours.

Maybe Allah isn’t God.  Then again, there are many who think of Jesus as just a really good guy, someone whose examples we could all follow.

And he was, after all, a good carpenter.

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