(photo from nymag.com)

This has been bugging me for the past 24 hours. I mean–what the hell was THAT?

Now, I admit, I’m no longer religious. The more I read the Bible, the angrier I get. I can’t stand church and what it’s become over the years for a lot of denominations and their followers. So you can take this with a grain of salt.

But honestly, though I don’t care for church myself, I have to say–YOU JUST DON’T DO THAT! Those church leaders who called him out on this photo op were right. You don’t use someone’s religious institution and book as a prop to make yourself look good for bullshit reasons.

Of course, this is a guy who’s hugged/humped American flags and kissed them for supporters (used as photo ops), so there’s clearly nothing sacred to him besides himself, anyway.

You just should never do that. Hell, Mike Pence would’ve been the better choice to do a photo like that for obvious reasons. But the Great Pumpkin had to make himself seen… and clear the street of protesters to make it possible.

And while it’s true the church got damaged during protests earlier (don’t remember if day before or what), THESE protesters were being peaceful. There’s controversy bouncing around on whether or not tear gas was actually used or just smoke canisters and flash bangs. That doesn’t matter to me. The fact that they were used at all when it was a peaceful protest is an outrage.

You don’t get everybody out of the way to use someone’s place of worship and book as a prop to say “look at me.”

The more I think about it, though, the more baffling it feels to me. I mean, it was also the most half-assed attempt to… I don’t even know.

What was the point?

To show he was going to pray for our country (I think he had the head bowed 20 or 25 seconds at most from what I read)?

That line from the bible about hypocrites praying in public keeps floating around in my noggin, by the way.

To show that he’d come out of his protected hole and demonstrate he wasn’t afraid, as some critics might’ve said?

…

I just can’t think of anything else. It makes no sense.

And he looks ridiculous. I wonder whose idea this was and what they were hoping would happen.

He can’t fake sincerity to save his life. And just looks damned awkward. I don’t know what he was trying to do.

Of course, his deeply evangelical following might love him even more for this. I read this in The Guardian last night and just shuddered. Listening to this happy talk about the man and the “armor of God” made the word “insane” float around, too.

(sigh).

I’m gonna go read some more of A Feast of Crows now. The “Game of Thrones” universe is making more sense than the one I’m living in right now.