Obeidallah says — and this sounds right to me — that the point of including those bible verses wasn't to be religious. But he then says the point was to pull at our heartstrings.
In my view, the point was to challenge in a very direct way the use of religion by some Americans to justify cruelty, barbarism, and inhumanity. The USA has famous been called a nation with the soul of a church.
Whether we like religion or abhor it, it's undeniable that religious bodies and religious ideas play an inordinately powerful role in the US public and political sphere, and it would be foolish not to engage them just because we think religion is a sham or toxin.
I read Biery to be engaging those who misuse religious ideas to justify the Trump regime's cruelty.
