The Georgia legislature recently followed the terrible example set by Texas and passed legislation that would allow guns on college campuses. They did this despite the nearly unanimous objections of the state’s college and university presidents. Their opinions apparently didn’t really matter. What mattered were the campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which drafted the legislation in both states and who is, on behalf of organizations like those funded by the Koch brothers, rapidly becoming a shadow government in many states.

Many good people in North Carolina are shaking their heads at what has happened in their state. Not only has a small group of radical right-wing politicians taken over state government, they also are gutting the once highly-esteemed university system and replacing regents with conservative ideologues who soon will leave North Carolinians with only basketball as a source of pride.

It has amused me that the Republicans, who have relentlessly pursued a policy of “guns everywhere,” are adamant that there will be no guns at their nominating convention in Cleveland this summer, just as there never are at conservative gatherings around the country. They know the truth that guns won’t make them safer, but that doesn’t matter when they are forcing college campuses to accept them against their will. Like always, it is all about money. They have been bought and paid for, and, even if you agree with them, their hypocrisy should disgust you.

The God of Jesus Christ is prejudiced/biased in favor of the poor, the outcast, and those at the margins. America has become a nation whose values are so warped by profit and greed that we can’t even hear the voice of One born in a barn to an unwed teenage peasant mother, who never owned a home or a business or a Lexus or a Rolex, who was executed by the state and had to be buried in a borrowed grave. How can we claim to follow such a one and not fight against systems that oppress and neglect and abuse those God is biased in favor of? If we don’t get this we need to stop reading the gospels through red, white, and blue glasses.