Scarborough Goes on Lengthy Rant About Religion, Speaker Johnson and Christian Nationalism

SCARBOROUGH: “And let me just say, Mika, just a little southern baptist programming note here. There is nothing wrong with Mike Johnson had religious studies or what — nothing wrong with that. You know, as we have talked about, my parents took me to church, like, two, three, four nights a week. It didn’t take. I know what you’re saying, it didn’t take. But a lot of it did. The thing is, it’s not that Mike Johnson is, like, some holy, you know, some holy example who is guided by the Bible. First of all, he got to power based on the biggest lie in recent American history, so Jesus didn’t get him there. The lie did. But there’s also, again, this bears repeating because of the self-righteousness of so many on the far, far, Trump right. They’ve invented a religion. This Christian nationalism, they’ve invented a religion. It keeps getting more extreme every week. IVF now is, I guess, the devil’s playhouse. Mike Pence had kids through IVF. So now what, is he a heretic? Are they going to hang him? They wanted to. Is his wife a witch? Are they going to have witch trials now? You know, I will say this again, and let those who have ears to hear, hear. When I was in high school, the Southern Baptist Convention was pro-choice. In fact, they were pro-choice from the time of Jesus through the time The Beatles broke up. But wait, there’s more. Not only through the time The Beatles broke up were these protestant denominations pro-choice, they were pro-choice through the time The Eagles broke up. Yes, through the long run, all right? Through the long run. We can go the distance if our heart — you know the song. Think about that for a second, as they’re waving their Bibles in your face and telling you that you are insufficiently Christian because you don’t believe what Jerry Falwell, Richard Viguerie, and Paul Wyrick decided — please stay with me — decided in 1979 they had to do to beat a Democratic president who happened to be southern baptist. They couldn’t say he was insufficiently Christian because he taught Sunday school every Sunday, basically, and he was a good and decent man. So what did they do? Stay with me! I know you don’t want to hear it out there, but stay with me because it is the truth! They invented the issue of abortion as a religio — not just as a political issue, but Jerry Falwell, Richard Viguerie, a Republican operative, and Paul Wyrick, a direct mail specialist, Republican, they said, ‘We’re going to create abortion not just as a political issue. We’re going to make it a religious issue.’ And by making it a religious issue, again, ‘The Long Run’ had already been released by The Eagle, they’d broken up. They said — Elvis Costello’s ‘My Aim Is True’ had already been out three years. They decided at this point — people, by the way, at this point had already thrown away their leisure suits and their pet rocks. This is how far removed from the birth of Jesus Christ this was! Now, Chia Pets were still — people still had the Chia Pets. Still with us now, by the way. But they decided, ‘We’re going to make abortion a religious issue. That way, Jimmy Carter can take votes from conservative Catholics and working class protestants.’ That’s what they figured out. And now you fast forward all these years later, and you talk to most of my friends, they’ll tell you, ‘Abortion, that’s a religious issue.’ You know what it’s like? It’s like the death penalty, is what it is like, actually. You read the Bible and your view of the Bible can inform you on these issues, but the fact, the fact, Mika, that they now are saying not only is abortion a religious issue and you’re going to hell if you’re pro-choice — I wonder about my mom and my grandmom and my dad and people who went went to church for week after week after week, my grandmom, this would be quite a shock to her, that she was insufficiently Christian when she worshiped and prayed and lived one of the most devout lives ever. This would be a real shock, that since she was in the Southern Baptist Convention, she’s going to hell because the southern baptist convention was pro-choice. But now it’s gotten even more extreme, as these things do. So now abortion is banned. If your 10-year-old girl is raped by an Illegal immigrant and you don’t want your 10-year-old girl to are have to carry the Illegal immigrant’s baby to term, you don’t want the state to force your 10-year-old girl to have a baby, there are people who think you’re going to hell. Listen, I wouldn’t want to be standing in front of Jesus, like, at the end of my life, answering for what I did to that 10-year-old girl, forcing her and her parents to flee the state because of some religious precept that was created in 1980 in the protestant church by Jerry Falwell, Richard Viguerie, and Paul Wyrick. And now they come for IVF. Why are we surprised? Is anybody surprised? Because when they took the constitutional right for a women to choose a way form women for the first time in 50 years, they warned us, Clarence Thomas warned us. He said, ‘Now that we’ve looked at this, we need to look at interracial marriages?’ Oh wait, no, he didn’t say that. ‘We need to look at contraception. We need to look at marriage equality, we need to look...’ — and he went down the list. Why are we surprised? And for you people out there who think it is going to end here, you are dreaming. Because now, what they call Christian nationalism has nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we have seen through history, Reverend Al, people drunk with power and using religion for political power, it always ends badly. It always ends badly. It’s moving in that direction now.”