Reader's view: It’s fine to forgive Trump, but not to elect him

We’ve gone and done it!
We’ve elected someone president who saw nothing wrong with dissing Sen. John McCain because he was merely a POW who endured torture at the hands of the Viet Cong for years.
We’ve elected a man who accused grieving parents of a fallen hero of being political foils - even though his own GOP convention featured a grieving parent whose son was killed in Benghazi.
And we’ve also elected a man who insulted women, mocked a disabled reporter, said global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, offered to pay the legal bills of those who punched protesters at his rallies, and called his opponent a liar even though he told many more lies based primarily on scapegoating this opponent.
And he insulted African-Americans, Muslims and Hispanics, and threatened to sue anyone, or any news source, that challenged him.
Now, after being elected without the popular vote, he has appointed a journalist who openly promotes the hatred of Jews as his chief strategist.
And what are we told? That all these things don’t define the sweet person President-elect Donald Trump really is. We’re told not to take his remarks seriously because they were spoken in the heat of battle.
However, Jesus Christ specifically taught us that it’s not what goes into a man’s mouth that defiles him but what comes out. From the Gospel of Matthew: “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.”
Yet, despite Christ’s warnings, many sincerely religious people voted based on one issue and insisted that Jesus wants us to forgive. But aren’t we always free to forgive without needing to elect the person we forgive?
Peter W. Johnson
Superior