How conservatism violates Jesus's teachings

"Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

Those are Jesus's words (Matthew 22:21). The Republican Right and the Tea Party claim to be messengers of God, but the conservative movement contradicts what Jesus taught.

The above saying refers to separation of church and state, and the necessity of taxation. Jesus also said that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24). Taken together, these well-known sayings show the rectitude of a progressive tax system - which the Far Right opposes. (Similar translations of these sayings appear in other gospels.)

To "give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" limits some aspects of government while expanding others. The problem for the conservative movement is that it limits the parts they want expanded - while expanding the parts they want limited. Jesus's phrase is more or less diametrically opposed to the Far Right's agenda.

Have the self-anointed holy sentinels of the right wing even read anything that's in the Bible? Perhaps, but they just don't care what it says. It's just like how I'm sure their legislators have read the Constitution - because anyone who's taken 7th grade civics has - but they don't care about it.

Christians really are being persecuted - but by the Right, not the Left.