James "Brian" Gilmore, one of the officers fired from the Wilmington, North Carolina police force this June for making some absurdly racist statements about the Black Lives Matter protests, is claiming that the racist things he was recorded saying were not in fact racist, but rather an expression of his religious beliefs.

Oh.

In a letter written to the Wilmington Civil Service Board, Gilmore explained that he believes he should not have been fired, because his comments were not motivated by racism, but rather by his personal religious beliefs about idolatry. His concern, he explains, was that people he did not know in videos he saw on the internet were violating the tenets of his religion by "worshiping" black people. The letter did not mention the statements from the other officers, which included such gems as "we are just going to go out and start slaughtering them (racial slurs)."

Below are the comments that got Gilmore canned, via Port City Daily:

Gilmore, who had parked beside [Piner's] patrol car, said the department was only concerned with "kneeling down with the black folks," according to a report summarizing the internal investigation in explicit detail. During a May 31 protest that resulted in multiple rounds of tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets fired almost entirely by deputies from the New Hanover and Brunswick Sheriff's offices, WPD officers were applauded for kneeling with protestors.

Gilmore then said he watched a video posted on social media showing white people bowing down on their knees and "worshipping blacks."

"How many times have I told you it's almost like they think they're their own god?" Gilmore asks Piner.
He then tells Piner about another video he had seen where a "fine-looking white girl and this punk little pretty boy bowing down and kissing their toes."