The Hypocrisy of Pickpockets in Florida

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.
-- Mark Twain

Some days, you got to remind yourself that the louder and pious the elected official behaves in public, the likelier it is that elected official is a hypocritical pickpocket.

Case in point: This morning the news let out that the Florida state legislator who authored the odious "Don't Say Gay" law that the Far Right Republicans shoved down our throats was charged by the feds for stealing from the federal COVID-19 bailout funds. Via Edwin Rios at the Guardian: 

A federal grand jury has indicted the Florida state representative Joe Harding, the Republican lawmaker who authored the “don’t say gay” bill, for Covid business relief fraud and money laundering, the justice department announced on Wednesday.

Between December 2020 and March 2021, Harding, 35, committed wire fraud when he took part in a “scheme to defraud” the Small Business Administration and obtained Covid-related relief funds for small businesses under false pretenses, according to a federal indictment.

Harding, whose biography lists him as a “home healthcare executive” and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, allegedly “fraudulently obtained” more than $150,000 in funds from the Small Business Administration...

Harding’s home health agency is located in Ocala. After state redistricting created a new electorate, Harding moved to Ocala to be closer to his job and ran for house district 24, according to Florida Politics. He authored the Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibits educators from talking about matters of gender and sexual identity in schools, a move that advocates worried would “erase” LGBTQ+ students and their history...

It's not mentioned in the article, but I bet you a couple wooden nickels that Harding is one of those happy Christian warriors, the kind who love to claim they follow all of Jesus' teachings and live by every word they can quote from the Bible. The state-level Republicans are full of such Bible Thumpers who enjoy the sadism of thumping everybody else's heads with the thick Bibles in their hands.

Considering how Harding is openly crusading against Gays and Trans identities, he's likely one of those Christian warriors who'll quote the passages against homosexuality and any kind of gender identity they view as deviancy.

I guarantee you Harding will never quote the parts of the Bible where Jesus commanded us to love each other, the open act of Grace that defines acceptance regardless of race or gender or gender preference. 

Based on the federal charges leveled against Harding, he certainly never paid attention to God's Commandments like, oh:

You shall not steal (taking $150,000 that didn't belong to you).

You shall not covet thy neighbor's belongings (a thief in high office tends to covet the trappings of wealth, the cars, the big toys, the even bigger houses).

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (lying in general - such as falsely claiming workers you never hired - tends to be a violation of ethics as well as faith).

Harding is one of many Republicans who rail on religious grounds against the very existence of gay and trans people, and then hypocritically commit crimes against everyone else thinking that their political and religious status will shield them from accountability.

Well, guess what Harding? Your hypocrisy does not shield you. You are now about to answer to Man's Law with regards to your greed and envy.

Just wonder how you'll excuse all that greed away with the God's Law that you never held true.

P.S. KEEP SAYING "GAY", FLORIDA. Harding doesn't speak for us, that's for damn sure.

Update: That was quick. Harding resigns from his office. It won't change much - the Florida lege is so dominated by Republicans they could lose 20 of them and not blink an eye - but it does suggest he had no room to run.