Kasich: People Supporting Family Separation at the Border Do Not Understand Religion

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said American who agree with President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that caused the separation of families “have not come to understand what faith is.”

Kasich then cited Biblical doctrine of loving your neighbor.

Kasich said, “The reason why I did not go to our convention and support Donald Trump as president is I’m not for a divider. I’m not for people who say the reason you don’t have something it’s because somebody else took your stuff that’s told victimization. I don’t believe in that.”

He added, “I think one of the things that’s happening is that people have been increasing — not everybody, but many have been increasingly unwilling to put themselves in the shoes of somebody else. Even when you think of family separation at the border, some people say, ‘Well you know, they had a choice, they didn’t need to go there.’ Well many of them had to go there to save their kids’ lives literally. So look, I don’t want to be doing some sort of religious hour here, but I think what’s fundamentally changed our country is that many people have not come to understand what faith is, which is loving your neighbor, elevating others sometimes in front of yourself, putting yourself in other people’s shoes.”

“And when we don’t do that, we lose the essence of our country,” he continued. “When my father and my uncle talked about the Great Depression, everybody pulled together. And what we’re seeing now is people pulling apart rather than coming together. I think that’s an element of religiosity. If you’re a humanist, I love you anyway because you believe in making a better tomorrow, but we need the compass back, and I frankly think it comes from on high.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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