TX Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Blames Unrest on Anti-Religious Policies and ‘The Left,’ Says Nation Won’t End Racism Until It ‘Turns to God’

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick repeatedly invoked God and religion as being necessary elements of a national culture if the country were to ever heal its fractured divide over racism.

During an appearance with anchor Shannon Bream on Fox News at Night, Texas’ second-highest elected official implicated unspecified members of “The Left” for trying to “kick God out” of the nation’s institutions. He went on to suggest those policies bore much of the blame for inflaming the racial prejudice at issue in the protests over the alleged police murder of George Floyd.

This is not the first time Patrick has made highly charged, incendiary comments of late.

In late March, Patrick appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight to advocate for a rapid reopening of the economy, despite the risks to the elderly, infamously suggesting that they might have to sacrifice themselves for the good of the nation’s financial health. “Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country,” Patrick said, sparking widespread outrage. Patrick doubled down on those comments six weeks ago, again telling Carlson: “There are more important things that living.”

“Shannon, for me, as I look at this, and it breaks my heart what I’m seeing, from the original crime that was committed by the police officer on George Floyd, to what’s happening in our streets, that we have racism in this country,” Patrick said, before shifting to an attack on his ideological opponents and invoking God numerous times. “But it’s really an issue of love. It’s loving God. You cannot love your fellow man if you don’t love God and we have a country where we’ve been working really hard, particularly on The Left, to kick God out. We need a culture change to address this racism. You cannot change the culture of the country until you change the character of mankind. You can change that unless you change the heart, and for billions of us on the planet, we believe you can’t do that unless you accept Jesus Christ or unless you accept God. God has been left out of this equation for all of this and we need tremendous healing. We cannot heal through commissions and blue-ribbon panels and more laws.”

Bream, in response, echoed Patrick’s comments and invoked God herself in pointing to the peaceful protestors who are stepping to prevent rioting in many instances. “Yeah, and you know the Bible tells us it’s not optional. Love your neighbor as yourself,” she said. “If we would look in the mirror at how we treat each other and whether we would want to be treated that way, I think it gives us a very good perspective for seeing each other as children of God and a way that we need to respect and honor each other.”

“We’ve been blessed here in Texas. Without a few problems and a few of our towns, but basically our protests have been peaceful in Texas and we have kind of a history of that,” Patrick claimed. “I believe that Texas is a state that has a strong faith-based community. When we had Hurricane Harvey, it was black people risking their lives to save whites and whites to save blacks and Hispanics. When people died in those boats, people on the roof, no one cared who was in the boat on the roof, black, white, brown, Republican, conservative, liberal. People didn’t care who was in the boat, we were one Texas and I want Texas to lead with that message.”

“These four people will be taken to court and they will be tried and a jury will make that decision and I think America has made that decision and that will be tried in the courts, but more than that, once that’s passed us, we have a lot of healing to do,” Patrick added, and then made one last call for embracing religion as the means of solving racism. “We have 700,000 police officers, men and women and they are extraordinary for the most part and we now see — we see this ‘Defund Police. Defund police.’ The 700,000 Americans, black, white, and brown protecting us on the thin blue line between us and the mob we see trying to destroy our country. So we’ve got a lot of healing to do and we can’t do it unless we turn to God and we need to do that now more than ever. I’m not trying to preach. I just know that’s the truth.”

Watch the video above, via Fox News.

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