GOP Lawmaker Says Conservatives 'Own' Christian Tradition

Rep. Dave Brat said Obama is "bonking Republicans over the head with the Bible."

A Republican lawmaker in Virginia suggested President Barack Obama and other Democrats shouldn't cite the Bible because conservatives "own the entire tradition."

Dave Brat, the Tea Party Republican who beat former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary race and then went on to win a seat in Congress, was agitated that Obama said last year that Republicans opposed to allowing refugees into the country were "scared of widows and orphans."

"People in the tradition know what that word means, right?" Brat said in a Monday interview with Sandy Rios of American Family Radio, noting that Jesus commands that Christians take care of widows and orphans.

"He’s using the Christian tradition and he's trying to bring about compassion by bonking Republicans over the head with the Bible," Brat said in audio posted online by Right Wing Watch. "It’s almost a comedy routine on what compassion and love is."

Brat said Obama is "mocking his enemies in order to compel a larger federal state using the tradition of love."

He said it's time for conservatives to take back the Bible.

"Our side, the conservative side, needs to reeducate its people that we own the entire tradition," he said.

Brat also said conservatives need to reclaim the moral argument.

"If you lose the moral argument, you'll lose the policy argument every time," he said. "We need to regain the moral argument where we're so strong."

(h/t Raw Story)

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