The Week in Quotes (July 15 – 21)

Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler, in a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has threatened the city’s plastic bag ban, its new ordinance mandating paid sick leave and its limited tools to enforce housing affordability, and, most recently, sued the city for the composition of its Planning Commission.

“The issue is not Austin breaking existing laws, it’s the State passing and threatening new laws to preempt and abridge our city’s otherwise legal conduct. After Austin acts of, by and for its people, the State swoops in to endanger our environment, make our community less safe, take away affordable housing tools and earned sick leave, all of which are attempts at interfering with the culture of Austin that, importantly, drives our economy and quality of life.”

——————————————–

Religious-right leader Jerry Falwell Jr., on the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade with Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This is a vindication for the 80 percent of evangelicals who supported Trump. Many of them voted on this issue alone. Today’s a day that we as evangelicals, and really all average Americans, can say we told you so.”

——————————————–

Katherine Stewart, the author of “The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children,” on a Russian foreign agent who used the National Prayer Breakfast to access high-level U.S. government officials.

“The religious right thinks that it’s using Mr. Putin to advance its aims. But a far more plausible interpretation is that he is using them – to infiltrate, divide and weaken our country.”

——————————————–

Christian TV host Rick Wiles warns his followers that MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is preparing to lead a bloody coup to overthrow the Trump administration.

“Be prepared that you’re going to turn on the television and see helicopters hovering over the roof of the White House with men clad in black rappelling down ropes, entering into the White House. Be prepared for a shoot out in the White House as Secret Service agents shoot commandos coming in to arrest President Trump.”

——————————————–

Brantley Gasaway, a professor of American religious studies at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., saying white evangelicals’ fears about the nation’s growing racial diversity might be linked to their perception of religious diversity.

“They perceive that America becoming less white means America will become less Christian. I don’t think that’s true. Many Latino immigrants are coming from predominantly Christian nations. But they perceive changes in racial demographics as being a threat to the predominance of Christians in the United States.”