INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith said Thursday that American culture and values should not be up for debate during an appearance on the Flashpoint podcast, where he discussed President Trump, immigration, religion, and concerns he raised about extremism and assimilation.
Beckwith said efforts to remove hate from public life go too far, and he tied his comments to his interpretation of religious teachings.
“We’ve seen this movement to eradicate hate in our culture. That is the worst thing we could do. You know the Bible talks about how God hates certain things, and when we say we want to eradicate, think about this, we’re actually saying we want to eradicate a characteristic of God. And he is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love.”
“And so when I talk about guys, we need to, in Indiana, we need to hate certain things. If a radical ideology mindset starts coming into our state, I’m gonna hate it, and I’m gonna hate it with everything that I am. And I’m gonna call on others to hate it, because hate is love’s demonic death. I love Muslims because they make great Christians when Jesus gets ahold of them, but I hate Islam.”
Beckwith also spoke about immigration, saying people who come to the United States should adopt American culture.
“We need to get this narrative that somehow assimilation is racist out of our culture. And this is the problem. Essentially, the narrative has become, well, you’re welcome to come here, bring whatever you want to bring, and you’re just part of us. No, that’s not how it works.”
“What is ‘us’? What are American values? What is the American way of life? And we have to know that, and then we have to say, you’re welcome to come here, but you assimilate. We are who we are, you don’t become us, you become us, and so we’ve kind of, if you talk to the next generation, a lot of the students that are being taught in colleges and universities, if you say something like that, they’ll say that’s racist, that’s really intolerant, that’s really bigoted. No, it’s not.”
“It’s absolutely appropriate to say you’re welcome to come, but you assimilate. And I think that word, assimilation, just got thrown out because people are afraid to use it. Because you’re going to be, especially if you’re an official, like, ‘oh that’s really big,’ you know, elected official, you shouldn’t say that.”
“But I think we have to be proud of this assimilation process and bring it back into the narrative.”
