In this discourse, we engage with the astute John Fuglesang, a comedian and commentator whose incisive examination of contemporary socio-political issues intersects humor with moral clarity. Central to our dialogue is his provocative tome, "The Separation of Church and Hate," which dissects the hypocrisy prevalent in political rhetoric surrounding faith and morality. John articulates a compelling argument for reclaiming empathy over extremism, positing that genuine Christian tenets advocate for compassion rather than condemnation. We delve into the complexities of bodily autonomy, particularly regarding women's rights, juxtaposing these issues against the backdrop of religious doctrine and societal norms. With a blend of wit and candor, we challenge the dichotomy between professed beliefs and the actions of those wielding power, all while underscoring the necessity of love as a fundamental policy for a more just society.

The conversation unfolds with an incisive examination of the moral paradoxes embedded within contemporary Christian discourse, particularly as they pertain to the contentious issue of abortion. John Fuglesang, an adept commentator and comedian, elucidates how personal experiences—stemming from a conservative Christian upbringing—have shaped his understanding of bodily autonomy and the pivotal role it plays in the discourse surrounding reproductive rights. He argues compellingly that the sanctity of life, often heralded by conservative factions, must include the life and autonomy of the mother, thereby challenging the hypocrisy that pervades the anti-abortion stance. Fuglesang's insights offer a refreshing perspective on how empathy can be reclaimed from the clutches of extremism, suggesting that true Christian values should prioritize compassion and understanding over rigid dogma.

Takeaways:

• The podcast explores the intersection of faith and politics, emphasizing the need for empathy over extremism in current discourse.
• John Fuglesang argues that the true teachings of Christianity are often misrepresented by those in power, particularly regarding issues like abortion.
• Humor is presented as a tool for conveying moral clarity, highlighting the importance of mercy and understanding in societal debates.
• The discussion addresses the hypocrisy of claiming pro-life values while neglecting the welfare of mothers and the marginalized in society.
• The conversation underscores that love as a policy is essential for societal progress, advocating for compassion over cynicism.
• The importance of addressing systemic issues such as poverty and immigration through a compassionate lens is emphasized throughout the episode.

Links referenced in this episode:

• johnfuglesang.com
• siriusxm.com
• johnfuglesangpodcast.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• SiriusXM

FOREIGN.

Welcome to Perfect Union Pending, where we try to make sense of the systems that shape us and the souls who still care enough to dissent.

My guest today is someone who speaks truth to power with a smirk and a scriptural reference.

John Fuglesang, comedian, actor, commentator and host of Tell me everything on SiriusXM, has spent years turning moral clarity into standup.

His new book, the Separation of Church and Hate, takes a scalpel and a punchline to the holy hypocrisy that defines so much of our politics today.

It's a book about reclaiming empathy from extremism, about seeing faith as something to live, not legislate, and about how humor, when done right, is less about mockery and more about mercy with teeth.

John welcome to Perfect Union Pending.

Thank you, Taylor.

So nice to be here with you.

Thank you so much for coming on.

I sincerely appreciate it.

Of course.

So as we were kind of talking ahead of time, one of the things that intrigued me was your journey with your family.

The way that I was, as I was saying, I came from a conservative Christian background, and now I'm Christian, but less so on the conservative part.

And as I've gotten my education, I've come to see things very differently than when I was being raised in a conservative home where we were pro life, but yet we weren't pro life all at the same time.

We believed in, you know, that conception started at birth or it started or.

Sorry, it started at conception.

Thank you.

There we go.

And that, you know, that there was no room for any type of abortion.

And what I found most intriguing was, you know, that we, as we discussed it, we didn't completely fully understand Roe v. Wade because the balancing act that Roe v. Wade had was that when the interests of the mother superseded the interests of the baby based on viability, and that it made sense because a baby wasn't viable until 20 to 24 weeks at the time Roe had been passed.

And so what?

But what it came back to was, and the way that I reconcile it with my faith is bodily autonomy, Right.

At the end of the day, there is not a law on the books that legislates what a man can do with his body.

And yet now we have a court case that has hurt women's rights to that bodily autonomy that men so richly deserve.

And the conservatives come back with saying, well, you're killing a life.

And the very easy response is, except for the life wouldn't live outside the mother anyway.

And yet they can never reconcile that fact.

So the idea that we can take bodily autonomy Away from women without acknowledging this very harsh reality goes against what, in my opinion, Christianity should be based on is that ultimately mercy of not only bodily autonomy, but bodily choice.

Right.

Like forcing a woman.

There was a woman in, I believe it was Georgia who was forced to live with the baby inside her until the baby could be born.

And she was in a coma.

She was in a coma, right.

And that was a huge issue for me because we're making a woman live as an incubator for the sake of a baby that then the state casts aside and says we're not going to help in any way, shape or form or protect.

What do you say to people like that that justify that, that the life is so important to the baby, but we don't consider the mother's life?

Well, my opinion as a male on the matter of abortion is that male opinions on abortion don't matter.

The fact is it is more.

Pregnancy and childbirth are both more dangerous for a woman's health than terminating a pregnancy.

Abortion is safer for a woman's health than being pregnant is or childbirth is.

Which means I don't have the right to force a woman, I don't know to against her will, choose something that is a greater risk to her life.

Very simple for me.

Now, in the Christian element, it's even more simple if you want to bring Christ into it.

Because the Bible is not against abortion.

The Bible is never against abortion.

God never comments on ending a pregnancy or ever offers a punishment for ending a pregnancy.

God never saw fit to have Moses or Elijah or Jesus or Paul or any of the prophets ever talk about how wrong it is to end a pregnancy if God is angered by ending pregnancies.

We don't know it because it is not in this book.

Which is why in the Jewish religion it was believed that, yes, a mother's life is of more value than the fetus, which is something that could be a life.

And they believe that life began with first breath.

Throughout the Bible, you'll see this reference that the breath of God gives me life.

This is why abortions are legal and free in Israel right now, because of Jesus's religion never bans them.

And the fact is, in Exodus 21, God makes it clear that a fetus is property and a woman's life has more value in his eye.

In Numbers, chapter 5, God gives rather detailed abortion tips for unfaithful pregnant wives.

Now, Jesus never mentions abortion, never says that government should force people to be pregnant against their will, never says that we should punish poor women with greater poverty or the 13 year old rape victims should be forced to be pregnant by their stepdad.

And Jesus is against the death penalty more than once.

So you're a bit more polite about it than me.

Taylor, my take is if you're going to tell me that you want to criminalize abortion, which Jesus never mentions because you're so Christian, but you support killing prisoners, which Jesus specifically opposes, then the rest of us are in no way obliged to take your claims of Christianity seriously anymore.

Abortion is an issue that is very important to conservative Christian politics.

It is not an issue that is important to the Bible.

And it's interesting, the Pope just came out and basically said something along the similar lines with the immigration issue where it was talking about how can you say you're Catholic and be pro life and come out and be anti immigrant.

Right.

Like to the point of, as you've said, rendering people to other countries for the sake of quote unquote deporting, but.

Not really like brought up the death penalty and migrants.

I mean Jesus never mentioned abortion specifically commands his followers to welcome the stranger, specifically tells us to turn the other cheek and stop executing people.

Of those three things, what do the right wing Christians cling to and what do they not care about?

These folks don't care about Jesus.

He is their mascot, not their leader.

They fight for him, but they don't listen to him.

His ministry is not their religion.

Their religion is conservative Christian power and conservative Christian dominance over society.

That is what they believe.

Not the teachings of Christ.

Not religious freedom, not, not Satan is bad and God is good.

They believe that their group is right and has to have control over all levels of society.

And because they're on the side of God, this is how fundamentalists think across all religions.

Because they're on the side of God, doesn't really matter what we do to get power because God wills it.

Yeah.

And you know, you ask them, well, would you feel the same way about if a practitioner of Islam would do it?

And they go off and it's like no Sharia law.

No.

You know, and they don't consider Judaism or even Satanism.

You know, there is some, there was, somebody was talking about how they should institute a, see if, if freedom of religion works for people that worship Satan.

Right.

Like, and, and, and the reality is is the answer is no.

You know, unless it's Christian, quote unquote, then they will, you know, it's, it's like, no, it's our way or the highway.

Abortion is legal in Judaism.

So an abortion ban is de facto violation of their religious freedom.

Right.

And yet here we are.

Right.

Like that was not even a consideration in the document.

They don't care about religious freedom.

They don't care.

It's a word they use.

Like they, I mean, the people care about abortion and politics and immigration, but the politicians don't.

If the politicians cared, abortion is how they get power, these politics.

They cared about lowering the number of abortions.

They would fight to have greater access to birth control.

They would fight for more sex out of the school.

There's not an abortion problem.

There's an unwanted pregnancy problem with an abortion symptom.

But they're not interested in reducing the number of abortions.

They need this issue to raise money to raise votes with immigration, if they were really that upset about it, if they wanted border crossings to stop.

And again, the majority of undocumented immigrants are people who overstay their visas, not people who cross the border.

So, you know, this is just about racism.

They, they, they don't go after the employers.

They're people who put up a giant help wanted sign at our border, the white people who put up a giant help wanted sign at our border.

And they will never go after those white people who give out the jobs.

They'll go after the brown people who take them.

And so you want to stop border crossings?

Yeah.

One year in a federal jail.

Anytime you hire an illegal immigrant nanny, work yard work, contracting work, construction work, you do that.

Agricultural work, farm work, you do that and you will see the border crossings dry up and salads will cost $75.

Now, I know not, not a lot of Trump voters are big salad fans.

I know.

But the fact is this is kept in place by hypocrisy.

Trump's already done a carve out for the illegals who do the agricultural work.

They're allowing them to stay because they know our economy and food prices are propped up by exploiting labor, which is another sign of how anti Jesus they all really are.

Donald Trump is the only president to have hired illegal aliens in two different centuries, and he did it to avoid paying American workers a living wage.

The fact is, if you want to really enrage a Christian nationalist, don't call them illegals.

That's a slur.

Call them what they really are, Christian refugees.

And see how furious that makes the right wing friends.

Well, yeah, because it doesn't fit their narrative that, you know, and I mean, how many billions of dollars did the undocumented workers contribute to in taxes?

I think it was like 89 or 90 or something.

Four and a half billion, about four and a half billion a year in state local sales taxes.

Yeah.

And yet, oh, they mooch off the system.

And you know the narrative that, oh, they're lazy.

Have you tried picking, you know, fruit for hours on end in the fields?

Have you, you know, this, this narrative that they're lazy goes to this, this idea that they're hanging out at Home Depot.

Democratic Party and the media have failed to call out the lies.

Oh, they just, they're just terrified of terrible.

That's why, while I more closely align with the Democratic Party, my allegiance is to the honesty and the truth.

Right.

Like this idea that, you know, it shouldn't be party over people, it should be people over party.

Right.

At all times.

We should be focusing on the benefits that we're helping others and doing for others.

And that goes against what is politically expedient.

Right.

Like Donald Trump, even when he campaigned, he said, I'm campaigning against the immigration bill that they had worked on for months because he needed to win on that.

And yet that didn't make it outside.

Kill the bill because he needed a crisis.

Yeah, right.

And I think that's such a like.

And yet he still won.

Like that should have been an automatic disqualifier right there.

Know about this stuff.

True, true, very true.

It gets to them, right?

No, it doesn't get to them because all they watch is Fox News, OANN and Newsmax.

But in general, yeah, one third is apathetic, one third is getting programmed by Fox News and one third are trying to spread critical thinking around.

But it's a, it's a cult at this point.

Yeah, it's a manly cult of blind, amoral obedience.

These people voted to pardon guys who beat the out of cops for a lie.

That's the level of Christianity we're dealing with here.

And that's why I wrote this book.

Because we can't hate these people, but in a democracy we've got to beat them.

And they're going to be hiding behind the Bible as their spiritual camouflage.

And I wrote this book as a guide to camouflage removal because on almost every issue dividing us the right wing in America is deeply, flagrantly against the actual teachings of Christ.

And so I wrote this book as a guide to all the right wing arguments to justify the awful policies they do and how they are against that Nazarene they claim so bombastically to follow.

Right.

I mean, the Good Samaritan destroys all of their argument as far as.

I mean, that one reference in the scriptures talks about how we should Treat foreigners in our land.

Right.

What we should do with them.

Not kick them out, not bind that, you know, not.

Not render them to other countries, not kidnap them, not.

Not force them to undergo things like Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been through.

I mean, that poor man that my heart hurts for idea that he would become this poster child of right wing anger for living in a country that he was seeking to be free in.

And this idea that we would render him to El Salvador and then bring him back because we had to, and then accuse him of crimes that he didn't commit just for the sake of covering up what we did wrong.

And I say we, I mean government, not me, obviously, to be clear.

Marco Rubio, to be specific.

And Pam Bondi and firing the DOJ lawyer who admitted to the court that we had deported him, renditioned him by mistake.

Yes.

And instead of just saying oops.

Right.

Like, I mean, not that that would have been better in the respect of that they still did it.

Instead of just saying, you're an unmanly.

They can't say oops.

They can't.

Oh, I know, I know.

And that goes to manhood.

They have no, they don't have the character for it.

Well, that goes to Trump's ethos of with Cohen where, you know, never admit you're wrong, never say that you've done anything.

And, you know, even if you've, even if you get caught, just keep the lie going.

Unfortunately, as long as that happens.

You know, I almost had hope that he, that more MAGA would turn on Trump when he was found during the Epstein files.

Right.

Like the.

There would be a thing where the Epstein files would come even the way that they have, they haven't come fully out yet, but that all of a sudden MAGA would go, wait a second, this isn't the person that we thought he was.

And yet he just keeps on winning with MAGA anyway and they keep on believing him.

And it literally blows my mind because I thought I use that term very loosely in the respective.

Hope I should say that he would come to that.

Yeah.

I'd like to remind, I'd like to remind you that in the past three elections, the majority of Americans who did show up to vote voted against Donald Trump in all three.

We should point that out.

That is very, very true.

And what's.

He has no mandate.

No, he has no mandate.

He'll keep saying he has a mandate, but he won't.

He doesn't actually have a mandate.

It was everything in me not to throw up.

I mean like just this idea that we would elect a game show host.

And it back then I used to think, well he won't get that far.

Right?

He won't.

You know, no one will keep believing him that long.

Right.

And now it's gotten to the point where there's just no, no, I shouldn't say hope but there's.

I feel like the dam is breaking a little bit, but it's not broken yet and I think it's going to take a lot more like as he continues to tank the economy, he continues to, you know, Moses Mike Johnson as some of the people call him, as he continues to avoid releasing the Epstein files by because he's withholding Grijalva's nomination.

You know, all of these things are moving pieces and hopefully, hopefully there might be a dam breaking here soon.

So I hope you're right.

Let's get back to the to talking about your book.

Let's see, you said that growing up with a former nun and a Franciscan monk for parents made you fluent in contradiction.

How did that shape your moral compass and the way you use humor as conscience rather than cynicism?

What a great question.

Well, I was raised by two ex clergy.

My father was a former Franciscan brother who taught history to Catholic boys in Brooklyn.

My mother was a nun, Catholic nun from the south who was put through nursing school by the convent and went to to work with lepers in Malawi.

And long story but they wound up after 10 years of being friends left and got married.

And you know my we were raised to believe that Christianity was about the stuff that Jesus talked about now humility, service, looking out for the less fortunate.

How you treat the lowest of the low is how you treat Jesus.

Forgiving your enemies, not hating anybody, not total domination of the local school board, not total domination of politics.

Not power as far as the eye can see.

The great con job that's been run on our right wing Christian friends in this country and really since the Rome took over Christianity.

But it's this sucker play of aligning with power instead of standing up to it as Jesus did.

Jesus was offered domain of the heavens and earth by Satan and Jesus said my kingdom's not of this earth.

They offered Jesus everything instead.

Jesus does not tell us that.

It's not about all the stuff you get and all the power you'll have.

His ministry is quite the opposite.

It's all about humility.

The last shall be first Servant leadership, washing the feet of your own followers.

Jesus is about what you do, not what you get.

And later in the, in the Gospels he saved, he feeds 5,000 people miraculously and the crowd wants to make him king.

And Jesus has to sneak away and go into the mountains because Jesus was about no kings.

4.

Time after time he says, you got to pick up your cross and follow me.

Not you gotta wave it around and show everyone that you got the biggest, thickest veinous cross in all of Golgotha.

I mean the, the guy's whole mission when he says, I did not come, I came to bring a sword.

What he's saying is not a violent sword used for literal bloodshed.

He came to say that if you're going to embrace my reform movement of radical kindness and empathy and prioritizing the least of us, it's going to cost you something.

You're not going to be as popular with your loved ones if you follow my radical path of radical love.

That's what he's talking about.

That's the Christianity I was raised in.

Something that aligns with Jesus and aligns with the marginalized, doesn't align with power, doesn't align with Caesar.

And this is of course the history of Christianity and its greatest problem since Rome took over.

When Rome took over the movement, it stopped being about the, this Jewish faith healers movement to care for the poor.

And it became an imperial religion that had its own army and could persecute pagans, could persecute Jews, could persecute Muslims.

And the Crusades was when they began to say, hey, you know what?

Let's violate everything Jesus tells us to do for Jesus.

Let's slaughter people and steal from them and take their land and be as murderous as possible.

But we're going to pray really hard before we do it.

And we're going to violate everything Jesus commands of us.

For Jesus to spread Jesus's movement, now that's stupid and immoral and it's all you needed.

And that is continued.

Columbus slaughtered the Taino people in the shadow of the cross.

Slavery was problem in Christianity.

So was the Holocaust, so was segregation.

But every step of the way, it's been the Jesus followers who have resisted authoritarian Christianity.

St. Francis quit the Crusades and preached peace.

You had in Columbus's third voyage, his Catholic priest, Bartolomeo de Las Casas was the first white person to commit an act of protest in this hemisphere.

Writing to the Queen to protest how Columbus was treating the Taino people you had in slavery.

It was the Christ followers Like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and the Quakers who formed the abolition movement in the Holocaust.

You had Christ followers like Diedrich Bonhoeffer martyring himself for his Jewish brothers and sisters and segregation.

It was Martin Luther King, a Baptist, using the Bible to shame these revoltingly fake Christians out of this destructive American apartheid of segregation.

And in our last 30 years of life, how many of us, we've seen so many talk their parents and grandparents out of so much homophobia.

I mean, there's an incredible history of Christian activism and it's almost always manifested itself in resistance to Christian authoritarianism.

Yeah, and you, you brought up some interesting points.

I mean, we have these people that are, you know, teaching, like you said, Jesus followers as opposed to Christians.

And I think that's a valid.

We have to differentiate those two things because we have people that profess to believe in Christianity, but then they don't actually follow it.

And, you know, I mean, even in the Bible that talks about the.

It is easier for say, a camel to get through the eye of the needle rather than a rich man to enter heaven, if I'm quoting correctly.

And you know, it's interesting, but yet we have the right wing that it worships.

The oligarchy.

Right.

The very epitome of rich.

And the patriarchy too.

And the patriarchy too.

And yet Christ was notorious for flipping over the tables, right?

When there was money Changers.

There were people the money changers were destroying.

They were hurting people and charging interest on the poor.

They were doing surge pricing.

Yeah, and surge pricing.

Yes, exactly.

Uber lifts surge pricing in the, in the, in 0 AD.

Yeah, and 33 AD, actually.

But yeah, they had turned his father's house into a profit center and he railed against it and in full view of the Roman soldiers.

And three days later the story tells us he was arrested.

Yeah.

And then you have Judas that for 30 pieces of silver betrayed Christ for, for that purpose.

And, you know, we look at that and we see these things that are happening now where people are betraying their faith for, for 30 pieces of silver on a regular.

Right.

Like, yes, always.

They always do.

But again, this is what happens.

What killed Jesus, it was some of the religious authorities who were ultra conservative.

Okay.

Not all the Pharisees.

A lot of the Pharisees were friends with Jesus.

Jesus may have been a Pharisee, but it was, it was ultra conservative religious bosses pairing with authoritarian power.

Right?

That's what killed Jesus.

That's what we're living in right now.

These right wing Christians that have chose to suck up to Caesar, because that's a lot more fun than following those inconveniently woke teachings of Christ.

I don't know where Turning Point USA has ever talked about the poor.

I don't see where these Christian groups focus on.

The family does not talk about the need to care for the sick.

Jesus lays it out in Matthew 25:5, the judgment of nations, the.

The parable of the goats and the sheep.

And he says, at the end of the world, I'm going to show up and I'm going to gather the individuals and nations.

That's very important that he says that.

And he's going to judge them on four criteria.

Four things.

He's going to judge us on heaven or hell, individuals and nations.

And it turns out he's not going to judge us on how loudly we scream at women outside clinics.

He's not going to judge us by how mean we are to trans kids.

He's not even going to judge us by how much we hate Muslims.

He's not going to judge us by how deeply we believe in a talking snake.

As literal fact, Jesus gives the four criteria.

He's going to judge us heaven or hell.

And they are.

You take care of the poor, you take care of the sick, you welcome the stranger.

You're kind to people in prison.

That's it.

That's it.

He said.

And then he said, this is the whole.

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

I was naked and you clothe me.

And then he says, who's not going to heaven?

He says, the ones who are going to hell are the individuals and nations who pretend to follow him but don't care for the poor, care for the sick, welcome the stranger, care for those in prison.

I mean, that's it.

Like he.

He spells it out right there.

And you will never see a conservative Christian group fight to put Matthew 25 on the side of a courthouse or a classroom.

Right?

And I find it funny that they call us a Christian nation, yet they don't actually practice Christianity with the nation that we could be doing.

I mean, we could eradicate poverty, we could eradicate homelessness if.

If we wanted to.

Right.

It's interesting.

I mean, not only did, by the way, not only did the founders not want this to be a Christian nation, but the fact that they owned people disqualifies them from ever claiming to have been one.

Slavery should end, and the treatment of the indigenous people should end any argument that this was ever founded as a Christian nation.

If we were a Christian nation, then we'd have free health care and no more poverty.

And the Pentagon would have to have a bake sale to raise funds to buy bombs.

We don't have a Christian nation.

Unless your definition of Christian is what conservatives like versus what Jesus likes.

And I think more and more we have to separate Christian from Christ follower because very often they're two profoundly different things.

Very, very true.

Yeah.

And it breaks my heart too, because imagine what we could do.

Right?

Yeah.

There's so much opportunity to help and build and produce better lives for so many people.

But that's not profitable.

When I teach business law at a local community college.

And one of the things I tell my.

I will give you an A if you can find one thing that does not come back to eventually.

Money.

That there is not some foundation of money and benefit to others.

Right.

Like, that's, that's the point.

That if.

If you can find one thing, I will give you an A right now at the beginning of the term.

Because everything people do or do not do things based on money almost strictly.

And it's sad that that's become what we are, is that people care more about money and power than they do.

About people and, and being right and being, you know, being superior.

Because that's, again, that's the essence of Christian nationalism.

That I'm better than someone else.

That's it.

I mean, that's how you know them.

That they're.

They're better than the Muslims or the homosexuals or the liberals or the academics or the foreigners.

I mean, whoever.

It's all about superiority to another group.

And that God likes me better.

Not that I think I'm better.

God thinks I'm better.

That's the fundamentalists of all the religions.

And those are the ones who are ruining all the religions.

And those are the ones who are driving young people away from organized religion one quarter of the way through the 21st century.

It's not the nice Christians, Muslims and Jews, they're not leaving the churches because of God or Jesus or Santa or Noah's Ark.

They're leaving because of the cruelty and the hypocrisy.

Yeah.

What would you say to the people?

Because one of the arguments is that liberals are evil and that that may justify their behavior.

I follow a lot of people on Twitter that.

That discuss openly that it's okay to basically murder the left because we're evil.

And then that's great.

Then stop saying you follow Christ because your hate is a rejection of the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus says you're not even allowed to Hate anybody you're not.

Whoever hates the brother or sister is in the dark.

So go ahead and hate all you want.

Please hate as your true messiah.

This racist landlord with a reality show from Queens has taught you.

But the more you hate, the more you prove that you don't really follow this Jesus you wave around like a prop.

So my job is to not hate you back.

And you know what?

Hit the other cheek.

Go ahead, hit me as hard as you can.

Right.

Yeah.

Christ even said forgive seven times seventy.

Right.

That's.

Yeah.

I mean, you can't really go supporting the death penalty and believing in the way of Jesus.

Yeah.

It's not compatible.

No.

And I've, I've.

From a legal perspective, I've, I've debunked that we shouldn't even have the death penalty.

It shouldn't exist, financially speaking.

You know, we can.

All the states dropping it.

It's too expensive.

Well, it's too expensive.

And this idea that.

How do I say it?

How unfair and biased it is, and the number of people that have been put to death that were innocent but were.

Oh, yeah, but that's not why they're, that's not why states are dropped.

No, no, no.

They're not dropping it because it's a moral and evil and anti.

Jesus.

They're dropping it because it's too expensive.

Thank God.

Yeah.

Imagine that.

Yeah.

I said it always comes back to money.

It's terribly cynical, but it's, it's.

I'm not wrong.

That's the other part.

So it's kind of sad.

John, it, it has been so good talking with you.

Thank you so much.

Honor.

Thank you.

More about one last question before.

I know you've got to go in one passage, you call hope a rebellious act.

In a democracy this bruised, where disinformation feels like lethargy, what does defiant hope actually look like in practice?

Well, first off, it's logic because I have come to believe despair is privilege.

I mean, if you're able to just be so despondent over how awful these fascists are that you're just going to check out and stop reading the news and watch TV or eat garbage and binge on Kardashians and just, you know, lose yourself in porn or whatever your drug of choice is, God bless you, that's a level of privilege I can't even imagine.

For the rest of us, we don't get to have despair.

We got to stay in the game.

And if you are in despair, if you don't feel hope, you want to know the best way to start feeling it.

If you don't feel strong, find somebody weaker than you and be strong for them.

Find someone with less hope than you and try to be hopeful for them.

Love as policy is the only thing that will save us.

Now, that's the sort of thing that'll get me laughed at by a lot of right wing guys who call themselves Christian.

But I do believe the only thing that will save America is love.

Love for Americans and love from Americans.

And it's gotta go both ways.

We're not gonna get it in the era of Trump.

And I fear that this is going to have to be like the Confederacy or the Nazis, that they're just going to have to fail so violently and horribly after causing so much suffering that these right wing fundamentalists and nationalists will be embarrassed for a generation.

But I do have a lot of faith that young people who don't get all this hate are going to have a backlash against this movement of incredible intelligence and decency and compassion.

You know, young people now can't understand how homophobic everybody was 25 years ago.

They don't.

It seems strange.

So in 20 years, imagine how confused they'll all be by how anti trans we all were once that's become more normalized and people aren't so scared of these people anymore.

So it's just like in so many ways we are getting better.

I know it seems like we're getting worse.

So, you know, I lived, I, I was a kid during the AIDS crisis and I've seen how much good can come from a plague.

So I have a lot.

I'm not a optimist, I'm a recovering cynic.

And, and, and Jesus taught me that love as policy works if you do care for the poor and keep care for the sick and care for the immigrant and are kind to those in jail.

You know, for every dollar we spend on prison education, we save $5 in recidivism cost.

Joe Biden showed in his first two years we were able to have the lowest childhood poverty rate in the history of this country if we want it.

Jesus's own policies show that if you take care of those at the bottom, they will spend that money, stimulate local economies, and the rich guy will still be rich.

But you'll have helped everyone instead of waiting for the magical trickle down to come.

So I actually think that the teach the love of Jesus makes for very sound economic policy that helps us all, including the rich guys, because if we all do better, we all do better.

And a living wage workforce that can afford to buy stuff is good for the rich guys, too.

Yeah.

And I actually taught business law in prison down in.

Down by the border.

I live in San Diego.

And I tell you that because these men had some interesting choices that they had to make in their lives.

And the person that was giving me a tour of the prison facility that I would teach at said to me, said, you have never had the choice to make that they've had to make.

They literally had one person that put a gun to the other guy's head and said, either you kill him or I kill you.

Oh.

And you have to look at that and ask yourself, where is the mercy?

There's no easy answer there.

None of you or I have never had that decision to be made.

Right.

We'll never have to worry about what's going to happen if we don't do something like that.

And it puts you in this position of going, you know what, maybe we should be a little more merciful.

Right?

Maybe we should be a little more compassionate towards these people because.

And I saw them, John, you save.

A lot of money, you know, if we.

We have a crisis with young men on our hands and young men having access to guns, where they're popping off and murdering people all the time because they're snapping.

And again, a world with more love, you know, I mean, the transgender suicide rate is nine times higher than the average population.

Sure seems like a bunch of people that could use the religion based on love and kindness and empathy, doesn't it?

Like, we have to stop hating each other at a time when the algorithm is making people rich by making us hate each other more.

These were good men, though.

These were good men that had made a bad choice and that.

Oh, yeah, but it's an impossible choice.

How do we judge them?

By an impossible choice.

It's, it's, it's.

It was.

I was grateful to be there.

I. I saw the good in these men and I was grateful to teach them.

But, John, thank you so much for very moving time.

I thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it.

I would love to have you back sometime future.

Is there anything last minute thoughts you'd like to share?

Just thank you for having me.

My book is called Separation of Church and Hate, and I do a show every night on Sirius XM Progress.

And we have a free podcast called the John Fegle Saying Podcast.

And I'm so happy to be here, Taylor.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.