Cut it out, Jesus. You’re making your followers look bad.

The horror show that is the growing right wing demands that migrant children who are being detained be—well, it’s hard to say, but the implication is that it’s wrong to detain them anywhere, and so I guess the demand is to wipe them off the face of the planet?—gets uglier by the minute. Media Matters has a stunning report on how one charity, BCFS Health and Human Services, that was trying to set up a shelter for children being detained by immigration, basically got bullied out of doing so by a bunch of right wing demagogues.

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The plans for the new facility had called for 600 beds for children between the ages of 12 and 17. BCFS would have taken the children from Border Patrol custody and housed them for an average of 15 days. The group also operates a facility in Harlingen, Texas, and a temporary facility at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. In a press release on July 16, BCFS announced that it had withdrawn its plans to develop the Weslaco facility due to “negative backlash caused by information misreported to the public.”

The idea that children would get to sleep in beds was more than right wing media could take and there was all this freaking out, accusing the government of treating these kids like millionaires swimming in luxury, since apparently “beds to sleep in” should be a rare treat only reserved for the rich these days. While it is true they were using a hotel facility for this purpose, it was being renovated to maximize the number of kids it could hold, something right wing media sources pointedly ignored in favor of pretending these kids were going to be served caviar and champagne.

But as I was reading through the hostility towards these kids coming from right wing media sources, I couldn’t help but think, don’t all these people consider themselves Good Christians®? It seems an avenue worth exploring.

Todd Starnes

Todd Starnes considers himself to be the most Christian Christian that ever prayed to Jesus Christ. Indeed, he’s probably the country’s biggest disseminator of the endless stream of myths that Christians are being oppressed and that their right to practice their faith is going to be stolen from them any day.

Upon finding out that some migrant children might have a bed to sleep in, Starnes pulled out all the stops to keep it from happening.

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Bible verse for the “good” Christian Todd Starnes to reflect upon: Matthew 18:10. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

Gretchen Carlson

Gretchen Carlson just loves being a Good Christian®, so much so that she was in that movie Persecuted and gave an interview about how sad she is that Christianity just ain’t what it used to be to WND. For me, during the Christmas season, I don’t want to take my kids around in the car to see all the crèches in the town where I live in and hear them say, ‘Mom, where are they? I don’t see them anymore,’” she said.

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Carlson sure does love contemplating the image of Jesus in a barn, where he had to be born because his parents could find no place to stay. However, that doesn’t mean she thinks children in the 21st century should have the comfort of beds to sleep in, no sir! That’s why she described living in a detention center built into a refurbished hotel as “living the American dream on the taxpayer’s dime”.

Bible verse for the Christ-loving Gretchen Carlson to contemplate: Mark 10:13-16. “And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.”

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Gateway Pundit

Like Todd Starnes, Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit) is forever telling bullshit stories about how all the Good Christians® are being told they can’t do important Christian stuff like pray or have Christmas decorations. It’s all bullshit, of course, but you definitely get the impression that Hoft is pro-Christian. Or at least pro-tinsel, because when it actually comes to having an ounce of charity for the least among us, Hoft is a monster who throws a major fit at the very idea that a child might spend a night sleeping on a bed, a child whose greatest sin is being born on one side of a border and not on the other.

From Media Matters:

The conservative Gateway Pundit blog said, “The beautiful Palm Aire resort and hotel has an indoor Olympic sized pool and an outdoor pool. Free Wi-Fi and cable TV are included in the simply decorated guest rooms.” The post used images of the hotel’s pools and tennis courts as it described the planned facility as a “resort hotel for illegal alien children.”

Here’s a photo of a facility that is much like the one they were actually going to build but now has been stopped:

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Too much charity! How dare those children, ages 12-17, insult the Good Christians® of the U.S. by daring to sleep in actual beds with no real privacy?!

Bible verse for Jim Hoft to contemplate: Mark 9:36-37. “He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.'”

Eh, fuck those kids, right, Good Christians®? Why are you worrying about them, when there are some zygotes that need saving?