What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Tuesday, May 15, 2007

   FALWELL THAT ENDS WELL

I just heard that Jerry Falwell has died at 73. I feel a sense of relief.

I wish I were a better person, one with compassion for all, but he's the guy who said this:

AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.

And let's not forget this gem, right after New York was attacked on September 11, 2001:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'

So I can't feel too sorry for him -- he's now sitting at the right hand of God in a glorious paradise free of anyone he disliked so very much.

At least that's what he hoped.

Labels: America, homo-a-go-go, media, politics, religion

Now any longtime reader knows that I'm quite hard on the Christian churches
--
can't
imagine
why
--
but I'm always strive to be fair, which is why I was so thrilled by two stories today.

First, I chatted on the phone today with Rev. Shawn Sanford Beck, an Anglican priest in Saskatoon who will have his ministry license revoked at the end of this month. Rev. Beck believed that denying gay couples the rite of marriage was "theologically problematic and fundamentally unjust." The bishop ordered him to recant and Beck has refused.

This afternoon, Beck explained to me how this stance was completely consistent with the work that he's done in Saskatoon's poor and Aboriginal communities. He still has a teaching job and his wife works with the food bank so, he says, they'll continue to "live simply" and get by. He was low-key and laid-back throughout the conversation. I told him how honoured I was by his support. I'm not sure I could be that brave in supporting a minority I have no connection with -- what a fantastic person.

But bravery can come from numbers and the second story today comes from the 30-million members of National Association of Evangelicals. Having recently weathered the loss of their hypocrite leader, the NAE have apparently reexamined their stance on a number of issues. Today, they publicly condemned the US government's use of torture while recently reaffirming a commitment to addressing the global warming issue, or what they sweetly call "creation care" -- this is a trend that began last fall but the NAE's involvement marks a big step forward.

Amusingly, the right-wing leaders of the other Christian groups are now freaking out over such disobedience, with a letter to the NAE warning that the global warming debate will "shift the emphasis away from...sexual abstinence and morality," leading (oh, of course) to mass abortions and infanticide. Jerry Falwell even calls the climate discussion "a tool of Satan" used by his usual laundry list of "liberal politicians, radical environmentalists, liberal clergy, Hollywood and pseudo-scientists."

No mention of gay men and lesbians, which is odd since we were (oh, of course) responsible for 9/11. I guess even sodomites can't be responsible for every disaster but what do I know? I'm working for the Jews.

Labels: fab, homo-a-go-go, politics, religion, repair

Jim Wallis has an op-ed piece in Time that I hope proves to be true:

As I have traveled around the country, one line in my speeches always draws cheers: "The monologue of the Religious Right is over, and a new dialogue has now begun." We have now entered the post-Religious Right era. Though religion has had a negative image in the last few decades, the years ahead may be shaped by a dynamic and more progressive faith that will make needed social change more possible.

People have always told me that religion is necessary because "it brings people together." I've seen precious little real evidence of that -- mostly the opposite -- but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

Labels: America, evolution, politics, religion

John Edwards, Democratic Presidential candidate, has been ordered to fire two of his campaign staffers by Bill Donahue, leader of the Catholic League. Donogue says Edwards "has chosen to embrace foul-mouthed, anti-Catholic bigots on his payroll." According to their press statement:

"On November 1, 2006, on her blogspot Shakespeare’s Sister, [Melissa McEwan] referred to President Bush’s ‘wingnut Christofascist base’ when lashing out against religious conservatives. On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, ‘What don’t you lousy motherf---ers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?’"

Personally, on my blog, I try to tone down the swearing but, for some odd reason, I know exactly how Melissa feels. Edwards admitted that he was "personally offended" by his staffers' previous comments but told reporters that the duo "gave me their word they, under no circumstances, intended to denigrate any church or anybody's religion and offered their apologies for anything that indicated otherwise. I took them at their word."

Sounds fair and should probably end there, but it won't. Donahue, or others like him, will continue to shriek about anti-religious bigotry. Too bad I can't sympathize, though, since Donahue, so concerned with civility and fairness and religious sensitivity, said this in December 2004:

"Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular...Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism...these people are in the margins. Frankly, Michael Moore represents a cult movie. Mel Gibson represents the mainstream of America."

My greatest fear is that Bill might be right about that, but I suspect mainstream America is more like comedian Louis CK, the creator of a Married With Children-type sitcom called Lucky Louie on HBO. Donahue attacked his show as "barbaric" and two radio morning show guys got them together to hash it out. It's a long clip but worth it for the way Donahue goes completely unhinged at the end. Sure, he's being ganged up on but this peek inside his head is like a really good horror movie, creepy and fascinating:



Oh, I get it: Donahue is a hero, trying to protect us from Arabian horses, bias crimes, Dakota Fanning movies and white Martin Luther King statue fetishists.

Or something.

Labels: America, media, politics, religion

There was an old Saturday Night Live fake commercial for "BAD IDEA Jeans" in which basketball buddies make comments like, "Now that I have kids, I feel a lot better having a gun in the house," and the screen flashes BAD IDEA.

I guess the ad was successful because there's many, many pairs of those jeans being worn now. And, for the most part, we're used to it. When I inevitably stop over the latest insane headline of a newspaper and inevitably rant, "Wow, can you believe this shit?" someone will inevitably say, "So what? It's just someone's opinion. Who cares?" Those people will undoubtedly live longer than I will but I still have to argue with them because we're never just dealing with one wrong opinion. A bad opinion stems from a bad idea and, like an untreated infection, will lead to bad actions, even from well-meaning people.

Here's my two favourite recent examples: last week, Joe Biden announced his candidacy for the US Presidential race. Like a typical politician, he did so not with a speech explaining why he'd be the best choice but with a speech criticizing his opponents. Biden now-infamously described his fellow Democratic presidential candidate and strong up-and-comer Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." BAD IDEA. As blogger Atrios said, "I believe we've just witnessed the shortest presidential run in history."

While most of us howled over Biden's unconscious racism with his use of "articulate and bright" and puzzled over what the hell he was thinking with the word "clean," others were pointing out that he'd made previous racial comments, like this gem: "You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." And remember, he's the left-winger. The only thing worse than his foot-in-mouth disease was what happened next, as the foot-in-head crowd dissected his comments. Two days ago, Bill O'Reilly actually said this to Temple University professor Dr. Marc Lamont Hill:

Now you got to feel sorry for us white folks here, because I’m telling you now I’m afraid to say anything...Instead of black and white Americans coming together, white Americans are terrified. They’re terrified. Now we can’t even say you’re articulate? We can’t even give you guys compliments because they may be taken as condescension?

Oh Bill, for the love of God, shut up! Don't you see the big neon BAD IDEA hanging in the air? Dr. Hill predictably, gorgeously, tore Bill a new one though, as usual, the host didn't notice. He was probably still marveling at how articulate Hill was. Meanwhile, on that same February 5th, national radio host, CNN anchorman, ABC correspondent and walking example of the "liberal media" in action Glenn Beck also used the presence of a black author on his show to confess:

I don’t have a lot of African-American friends, and I think part of it is because I’m afraid that I would be in an open conversation, and I would say something that somebody would take wrong, and then it would be a nightmare. Am I alone in feeling that?

No, of course not, Glenn -- there's lots of bigots out there. I love that Bill and Glenn suffer from the same fear: that their hearty pronouncements of "the truth" will be met with hostility by those confused, uppity Negroes. Why must the blacks be so sensitive? This is the ultimate BAD IDEA.

Beck infamous called the Katrina survivors "scumbags" and demanded that Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." Since he's dumber and more arrogant than Bill O'Reilly(!), I could go on about Glenn Beck all day (BAD IDEA) so I'll just point out Media Matters' extensive listing of his horrible opinions.

I have to move on to my second example of how well-meaning people can be roped in by bad ideas, courtesy of William Saletan, a columnist for Slate who's written excellent pieces explaining stem-cell research, cloning, the abortion debate, etc. He shocked me this week with his column on the New Zealand 'gay sheep' study. For the first time, we have hard evidence that homosexuality is biologically determined (at least in sheep, anyway). Neat! Until Saletan goes all Frankenstein on us:

"Roselli offers lots of evidence that human homosexuality is linked to biological conditions, some of them genetic. If he figures out how to manipulate sexual orientation in sheep, will others try to manipulate it in humans? We already have. Doctors used to "treat" homosexuality with hormone injections. Some still do. This idea failed miserably in adults, but it might work in fetuses, since their brains are forming. And if we can't engineer sexual orientation, maybe we can select it. Millions of Asians have used modern sex tests to identify and abort female fetuses. If we learn how to recognize gay brains in development, look out.

But killing is the horror scenario. The more likely path is gentler. Science will gradually convince us that sexual orientation is innate, more like the color of your skin than like the content of your character. Condemnation of homosexuality as a sin will subside. Freed from the culture wars, we'll turn to the biological differences between race and sexual orientation: Homosexuality defies the aspiration to procreate with your mate, and it's easier to isolate and alter in embryonic development. Resentment will give way to pity. We'll come to view homosexuality as a kind of infertility —- a disability, like deafness. The rhetoric of "acceptance" will shift from liberals to conservatives. We'll inoculate our offspring against homosexuality out of love, not hate."

Saletan's column had me quaking in horror at the notion of eradicating homosexuality by genetically-altering fetuses. I swear I could hear the hospital page for Dr. Mengele, Dr. Mengele to the operating room. For decades, we've had to listen to bigots go on about me and my friends being "unnatural" -- now they want to practice altering the chromosomes of babies? BAD IDEA. Isn't that an awful lot of work just to prevent the next Elton John? Is any of this making sense?

But that's science fiction, one might say. Calm down. Even if the whole world hated gays, we've proved pretty tough to eradicate over the centuries, no? Why not relax? If a bunch of people have racist or homophobic views, that's their problem -- we're dealing with it just fine. Well, I have to ask, are we?:

"The Ku Klux Klan, which just a few years ago seemed static or even moribund compared to other white supremacist movements such as neo-Nazis, experienced "a surprising and troubling resurgence" during the past year due to the successful exploitation of hot-button issues including immigration, gay marriage and urban crime, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The League, which monitors the activities of racist hate groups and reports its findings to law enforcement and policymakers, has documented a noticeable spike in activity by Klan chapters across the country. The KKK believes that the U.S. is "drowning" in a tide of non-white immigration, controlled and orchestrated by Jews, and is vigorously trying to bring this message to Americans concerned or fearful about immigration."

So let me make sure I've got this: it's the 21st friggin' century and we have a spike in membership for the Ku Klux Klan? Because the good ol' boys have put away their bedsheets and learned to make nice with Nazis? Wow, Molly sure was right about the ATM and the garlic press! But, as I've said, all these 'concerns and fears' simply stem from bad opinions made up of bad ideas -- notably the tired old canard that everything is the Jews' fault. The Jews I've known can't agree on bacon, let alone running the planet, and the KKK are trying to convince people that America is being overrun with Muslim fanatics because that's what Jews want? Yeah, good luck with that.

But Barnum was right -- there's a fuckwit born every minute (I paraphrase, of course) and John Rogers' 27% Crazification Factor theory still seems apt to me. All we can do to stem the tide is to come up with better ideas, or at least make savage fun of the bad ones.

I admit the latter is more fun but almost as necessary. How, for instance, could I -- growing up in white-bread Hamilton -- ever have a problem with black people? I grew up watching Bill Cosby on TV, hearing Martin Luther King's famous speech, dancing to Aretha Franklin and, perhaps most powerfully, learning about black history from Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live:

"So, Professor Carver's two dinner guests...Edward 'Skippy' Williamson and Frederick 'Jif' Armstrong -- two white men -- stole George Washington Carver's recipe for peanut butter, copyrighted it, and reaped untold fortunes from it. While Dr. Carver died penniless and insane, still trying to play a phonograph record with a peanut.
This has been "Black History Minute". I'm Professor Shabazz K. Morton. Good night."

I was 13 years old and Murphy's hilarious delivery burned into my memory, just like the BAD IDEA jeans sketch. Ultimately, bad ideas are useless and silly so I like a useless and silly response. Fight fire with fire. Like the two nimrods who shut down Boston last week -- I might have disagreed with their hare-brained corporate marketing stunt if not for the wildly-paranoid overreaction from the city's mayor and administration. It was so ridiculous that I could only applaud the two goofballs for their Dada press conference. Listening to the reporters getting angrier and more self-righteous in their questioning is still funny a week later.

As for the gay sheep -- implications aside, the story is kind of funny but leave it to wisecracking playwright Paul Rudnick to bring it home. His New Yorker piece, you see, was a very very Good Idea. And, in the interest of fairness, so is the end of Saletan's piece (mainly because he agrees with me, of course -- ha ha). Having hastily lumped him in with Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, I give him the last word:

But bad ideas —- communism, eugenics, wars of liberation -— don't happen because they're bad. They happen because, in the beginning, they're good. What we do with the biological truth about homosexuality, for good or ill, isn't written in our hormones or our genes. It's up to us.

Labels: America, evolution, homo-a-go-go, insanity, politics, religion

Molly Ivins died this week at the age of 62 from what she joked was "a scorching case of cancer":

"Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that...I had been in great hopes I would become a better person as a result of confronting my own mortality, but it actually never happened. I didn't become a better person."

This was the kind of quip she was famous for. Ivins was a Texas political journalist who described her early career in the late '60s as "making heroes of militant blacks, angry Indians, radical students, uppity women and a motley assortment of other misfits and troublemakers." She became a nationally-syndicated columnist but never a rich and famous TV pundit like so many lesser writers (though she's great on camera in this 1986 commentary on "fine ort" in Texas and in this amusing video on their sex laws). TV didn't know what to do with her -- she was too outspoken, too Southern, too sharp and too liberal.

Molly Ivins could listen to tedious speeches, read thick and dull budget reports, wade into the most polluted swamp of political spin and then explain, with wit and punch, what it all meant for ordinary working people. She knew a liar when she heard one and a fool when she saw one, and she'd write about them both, but always fairly: "I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth." I'd agree, if not for the fact that, well, Molly always told the truth. She did it well, she did it often and, on the occasions when she did make a mistake, she owned up to it in print (check out this incredible exchange between Ivins and famous misanthrope Florence King, for instance). Her obituary for her father both charms and haunts (it's well worth the annoying newspaper registration) so, rather than try to match that, the best tribute I can give Molly is to show you why I became a fan:

"I guess that was the first shock. Ronnie and Kaye had prepared me to find all manner of vile, venal types in the Legislature, villains without scruples and self-interested dastards without remorse. I didn’t find them. I found only stupid men. I found representatives so dumb they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. There are no villains: there are only asses."
-- June 18, 1971

"I have long maintained that Texans are not easy to love: we are, like anchovies, an acquired taste. I myself feel that we should be given points for our enthusiasm...At least Texans retain a capacity for awe in the face of something as awesome as the Colorado mountains."
-- December 30, 1977

“If [Rep. Jim Collins'] IQ slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.”
-- sometime in the early '80s

"Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -– it's vulgar."
–- December 9, 1991

"Many people did not care for Pat Buchanan's speech; it probably sounded better in the original German."
–- September 14, 1992

"I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives."
-- July 19, 1994

"Politics in this country isn't about left and right; it's about up and down. The few are screwing the many."
-- September 8, 1994

"Sometimes I think I made Warren Chisum up for my own amusement...The egregious Representative Chisum is once more trying to get gays taken out of coverage under the hate-crimes bill because, he says, gays bring violence on themselves...'They go to parks and pick up men, and they don't know if that someone is gay or not.' Sure. Right."
-- February 9-23, 1995

"If it weren't for the automatic teller machine and the self-cleaning garlic press, we'd have no evidence of progress at all...Let's face it: the evidence is always on the side of the pessimists. In fact, one of the few pro-optimism arguments that work is to point out that things can always get worse, which means we should be cheerful right now, because now will eventually be the Good Old Days."
-- May 7, 1995

"I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle."
-- May 30, 1995

"I have wasted more time and space defending Clinton than I care to think about. If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied."
-- from the introduction to her 1998 collection, You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You

"Arguing against the death penalty in Texas is such a bootless enterprise that over the years, I have worn down to merely advocating that we not kill (a) the innocent; (b) the mentally retarded; and (c) people who are so mentally ill that they think they’re black dogs in the seventh circle of hell and run around on all fours barking. As you know, these arguments have not prevailed, and we continue to bump off people in all three categories."
-- February 5, 1999

"The sponsor of the tax break in the Senate, J.E. 'Buster' Brown, explained simply, 'The oil industry is hurting.' And there’s nothing like pain in the oil industry to touch off compassion in a conservative."
-- March 5, 1999

"George W. is the unexamined candidate, and the extent to which he is unexamined gets eerier as Election Day approaches. At least half the country is prepared to vote for the guy; if asked why, they reply, 'Seems like a nice fella.' I like him myself. But he is often clueless, he does not have a nice record, and the idea of electing him president scares the living fantods out of me. I like my nephew, I like my mailman and the lady at the dry cleaners. That doesn’t mean they’re ready to be president."
-- November 3, 2000

"If killing more people were the answer, there would have been peace in the Middle East 50 years ago. The answer is justice, and there is nothing weak-kneed about it."
-- October 26, 2001

“I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. [Iraq] is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’”
-- January 16, 2003

"I have never lost a political storytellin’ contest in any category: crooked pols, dumb pols, out-goddamned-rageous pols. We win -— and we never have to make up anything. How can I lose with material like the time Rep. Mike Martin paid his Cousin Eddie to shoot him in the arm with a shotgun, and then claimed it had been done by a Satanic and communistic cult. You think I can find stuff this weird anywhere else? This is why I’m still in Texas."
-- December 3, 2004

"We can now safely assert that W. has stacked much of the federal government with people like himself. And what you get when you put people in charge of government who don’t believe in government and who are not interested in running it well is...what happened after Hurricane Katrina.
Often in the past six years I have bit my tongue so I wouldn’t annoy people with the always obnoxious observation, “I told you so.” But, dammit all to hell, I did tell you, and I’ve been telling you since 1994, and I am so sick of this man and everything he represents -— all the sleazy, smug, self-righteous graft and corruption and “Christian” moralizing and cynicism and tax cuts for all his smug, rich buddies.
Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention [emphasis mine, of course]."
-- September 23, 2005

"On the general subject of political corruption, do not fall into the fatal error of cynicism. You do your country a great disservice by saying things like: "Eh, they're all crooks. Nothing anyone can do about it. Money will always find a way."
The answer is perpetual reform. Fix it, and if corruption comes back again, you just whack back at it again."
-- January 11, 2006

Those last two are the ones that really get me. She spent a decade warning her fellow Texans about their useless Governor, yet they and the rest of America elected him President, with disastrous results. Nevertheless, she never lost hope, she never went silent and she never stopped believing in the decency and, yes, power of ordinary people. This is the end of her last column, published January 12, 2007:

"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'"

Yep, Molly Ivins went out the way she came in -- kicking at the pricks with a grin on her face. I discovered her columns during the Clinton impeachment, loved her ever since, and regret that I've never praised her in print before. Somehow I believed that, despite the cancer, she would outlive us all. As she famously wrote:

"Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce."

Goddamn, what a woman.

In tribute, the Texas Observer has reprinted many of her classic columns, including the one she penned when leaving the paper to join the New York Times in 1976. It was charming then and appropriately lovely now:

"And for me, it’s leaving time. I have a grandly dramatic vision of myself stalking through the canyons of the Big Apple in the rain and cold, dreaming about driving with the soft night air of East Texas rushing on my face while Willie Nelson sings softly on the radio, or about blasting through the Panhandle under a fierce sun and pale blue sky, laughing at Clarence Zugenbuler’s stock report. I’ll remember. I’ll remember the way the printer’s feels at 4 a.m. What it’s like to read The Dallas Morning News editorial page. Sunsets, rivers, hills, plains, the Gulf, woods, a thousand beers in a thousand joints, and sunshine and laughter. And people. Mostly I’ll remember people...
I wanted to call this The Long Goodbye, but Kaye wouldn’t let me. She wanted to call it, Ivins Indulges in Horrible Fit of Sentimentality.
I love you. Goodbye, my friends."

At her memorial today, Andy Ivins told the crowd that he'd once asked his sister why she always walked so fast. She told him, "What you do is you look up at the horizon, and you go quicker." Then, blues singer Marcia Ball sang Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire." Perfect.

Labels: America, evolution, politics, religion, tributes, war - what is it good for?, writing

Obviously, I've been turning cartwheels over this week's revelation that Ted Haggard, leader of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals, bought crystal meth from the gay prostitute he's been visiting for three years. With the US midterm elections tomorrow, it's a political jackpot and the metaphorical culmination of everything I've been ranting about for years!

So why does it make me feel so sad?

Well, first off, I feel sorry for his wife and kids.
Mrs. Haggard must obviously be devastated and, as for the kids, it's hard enough on children when they learn that Dad lied to them about Santa Claus; what if Dad lied about everything he believed in and everything he taught you?

But I actually feel sorry for Ted Haggard.
Watching clips of the infamous interview (with his wife and kids in the car!!!), the troubling face-off with hectoring atheist Richard Dawkins or the truly-terrifying excerpt from Jesus Camp is all creepy enough, but reading transcripts of the prostitute detailing their time together in karmic 'Bill-Clinton-Starr-Report' fashion is totally gruesome.

Last year, Harpers did a lengthy profile on Haggard called Soldiers of Christ that I found profoundly unsettling; now it's also profoundly sad. The man is clearly a seething mass of frustrated contradictions:

The fact is, I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.

For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom. Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach. Through the years, I’ve sought assistance in a variety of ways, with none of them proving to be effective in me. Then, because of pride, I began deceiving those I love the most because I didn’t want to hurt or disappoint them.

I don't hear the words of a 48-year-old right-wing Christian leader in this statement Haggard made on Sunday, I hear the unhappy rationalizations of a gay teenager. Maybe I'm projecting here but this statement sounds an awful lot like what I was writing in my diary at 17. I wish someone could've taken Ted aside and said, "You're not repulsive and dark -- you're a homo!"

I even began to feel sorry for his followers. I can't imagine how confusing this must be for them. When Bill Clinton admitted to having sex with "that woman," I felt disappointed in him and frustrated by his lack of control. But when you get right down to it, Clinton wasn't part of a massive political movement blaming all the evils of society on young Jewish interns, was he? That kind of disconnect between Haggard's private actions and public rabble-rousing is the sticking point here and, unfortunately, where my sympathies end.

You see, I'd like to think to something good could come from this, that perhaps the evangelical movement will understand that splitting the world into 'us' versus 'them' never works because there's no distinction. 'They' are 'us' and 'us' are 'they.' I'd like to think that this incident may help evangelicals understand that homosexual is less important than the way people channel them. I want them to see that allowing a self-hating gay man to hide by marrying a woman and having five children will ultimately ruin all of their lives. I'd like them to accept that allowing such a person to be honest, to find and live peacefully with another man, would be far more beneficial to society than the sad freakshow we've had to witness this week. I would like to think that but the odds are unlikely when the conclusions are already drawn. Mollie at GetReligion quotes from an e-mail she received, comparing openly-gay Anglican bishop Gene Robinson to Ted Haggard:

A pastor is married for years, has children, runs a successful church, advances in his denomination/sector of Christianity, and then “finds himself” and abandons wife and children for a live-in situation with another man. His reward? Consecration as a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America and wide-ranging media praise
...
Another pastor apparently is married for years, has children, builds and runs a a successful church, advances in his denomination/sector of Christianity, fights temptation and loses, stays with his family, and when the dam breaks, is crucified in the press as his reward.

This to me is an insane comparison. Gene Robinson divorced his wife three years before he got involved with his current partner. He and his wife are still friends because he was honest with his family and his community through the whole 'coming out' process. However one might feel about Robinson's status as a bishop, anyone who can't see a difference between the way he's dealt with his sexuality and the way Haggard has is either intellectually or spiritually bankrupt. On that note, Canada's own poster boy for nepotism David Frum (creator of the hit catchphrase "Axis of Evil") then chimed on along similar lines:

Consider the hypothetical case of two men. Both are inclined toward homosexuality. Both from time to time hire the services of male prostitutes. Both have occasionally succumbed to drug abuse.

One of them marries, raises a family, preaches Christian principles, and tries generally to encourage people to lead stable lives.

The other publicly reveals his homosexuality, vilifies traditional moral principles, and urges the legalization of drugs and prostitution.
...
If a religious leader has a personal inclination toward homosexuality - and nonetheless can look past his own inclination to defend the institution of marriage and to affirm its benefits for the raising of children - why should he likewise not be honored for his intellectual firmness and moral integrity?

Where's the "intellectual firmness" in Haggard hiring a prostitute and buying crystal meth? Where's the "moral integrity" in doing so while denying people the right to marry? And lying to your own wife and children? And I love the way the argument is framed as either 'stay in the closet for the children' or 'wallow in drugs and prostitutes' -- because no middle ground is possible, right? I can't believe that Frum would try to peddle this kind of crap, but then I read this take from The Christian Post:

While Haggard has only partially admitted guilt, the situation in its entirety is a stark reminder of man’s sinfulness and a dark exposure of how deeply the sin of homosexuality has taken root in the American society. If the accusations are indeed true, now would be the time for the Evangelical community look within its own walls and battle against the culture of sin that looms before the Church of Christ.

Yes, I'd like to think something good could come from the sad story of Ted Haggard but it seems a lot of other lessons have been learned, all of them wrong and none of them helpful.

Labels: America, family, homo-a-go-go, politics, religion, repair

Since conservative Christians were first credited with sweeping Bush into power (twice!) I've obviously carried quite the chip on my shoulder, but how could I not? Their blind, pointless hatred of gay people allowed America to be taken over by thieves, liars, warmongers, racists and child molesters.

Nice job, folks.

And in a Fox News culture, no one listens to the other Christians quietly doing good work -- let alone the Godless Liberals or the Evil Homosexuals -- but now (finally!) liberal Christians are speaking up -- like with this billboard in Connecticut:



"Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice" -- sweeter words have rarely been spoken! And only in this warped era could a condemnation of torturing other human beings be considered a daring political statement.

Meanwhile, David Kuo, former head of Bush's "faith-based initiatives" program, was on Bill Maher's show this weekend to discuss the White House's betrayal. As usual, Maher's a bit of a jerk but Kuo comes off as a champ:

Labels: America, George W Bush, media, politics, religion, repair

So Republican congressman Mark Foley got caught trying to sexually exploit the teenaged pages who worked in Congress, but wait -- it wasn't his fault! Foley's lawyer held a press conference to say that his client had entered alcohol rehab and that Foley had been sexually abused by a priest as a teen.

This week, Foley named that priest -- Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69 -- who immediately faced up to his sin:

"I had a nervous breakdown and was taking some pills and alcohol and maybe I did something that he didn't like."

Maybe. He just doesn't remember, people! It's like poor Mel Gibson -- a little too much to drink and suddenly you're an anti-Semite! Fortunately, Foley's boss and Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert didn't drink when he covered up the whole scandal for nearly a decade. But wait -- it wasn't his fault! As President Bush explains,

"[Hastert's] done a fine job as speaker, and when he stands up and says 'I want to know the truth'...and I believe yesterday he said that if somebody on his staff, you know, didn't tell him the truth, they're gone. I respect that and appreciate that and believe him."

Blaming underlings is odd, coming from the party of personal responsibility. After all, when Bush was nominated their leader in 2000, he said,

After all of the shouting and all of the scandal, after all the bitterness and broken faith, we can begin again...An era of tarnished ideals is giving way to a responsibility era, and it won't be long now.

Maybe that'll be November 7th, when Americans have the chance to finally kick some of these weasels out of office. Maybe they'll take responsibility then.

Labels: America, George W Bush, insanity, religion, repair

I've said for years that, as nervous as my big gay heart gets around the evangelical Christian movement, I could never hate people who believe they mean well. My wrath is reserved for those who've manipulated them for their own gain, those working to abolish the separation of church and state that's allowed Western civilization to accomplish so much these last couple centuries, for Christians and non-Christians alike. Yes, I've been saying it for years -- I just never believed that conservative bow-tie guy Tucker Carlson would, too:

CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in...

MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?

CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.

MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?

CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out.

Yep, guys like Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson are now in complete agreement with me. Is that a sign of progress or a sign of serious FUBAR?

Labels: insanity, media, religion

It took a while but I've grown to completely adore the South Park guys. The endless stream of lowbrow poop jokes and snide cheap shots left me cold until, after being exposed to enough of it, I began to see the sharp minds and warm hearts lurking behind the construction-paper animation.

This little highlight reel of last year's "Trapped in the Closet" episode makes me laugh out loud -- who knew such a cheap yet devastating takedown of Scientology could be kind of sweet?

Labels: religion, silliness, tributes, TV

Wow, where did two weeks go? Oh yeah, the new job as fab magazine's Number 2. In a word, awesome. I'm so happy. In a perfect world of better luck and smarter choices, this is the job I would have had after Glad Day books a decade ago but who cares? I'm thrilled and very busy working to advance the Dreaded Gay Agenda.

I only half-joke because this is the secret issue I have with my magazine in particular and a good chunk of homo-dom in general -- it's all a bit silly, no? Skim through an issue of fab and it's all parties and dancing and sex and art and music and joking and costumes and sex (yeah, I know, twice). But so what? I've read Maxim magazine, I've watched NASCAR, I've listened to 'bitches'n'hos' gangsta rap -- 'straight culture' is plenty ridiculous too.

The difference, however, is that heterosexuality never has to justify its existence. Oh sure, that Gay Agenda notion is thrown around by people who find it less funny than I -- people who think that the human race is dying off because Vermont lets men marry one another. In reality, however, the world has been, is and will be 90% heterosexual. If I have to justify the content of fab magazine to myself, it's because I have to justify myself to the rest of the world. Why? Paris Hilton doesn't have to. But then, she's not a fag.

LAND OF A THOUSAND WORDS

Yeah, it's hard not to sound snide but I've been bristling all week over the gay witchhunt spawned by Florida Congressman Mark Foley's gruesome e-mail exchanges with the teenage boy pages on Capitol Hill. The media's calling it Foley-gate; I'm calling it Where-the-hell-have-you-been?-gate (April, people!). The pleasure I'd take from the imminent and long-deserved collapse of the Republican party is quashed by the disgust and sadness I feel over this whole mess.

Plus, it ties into an e-mail I got from my old friend Darrell, responding to the "Jesus Camp" post below. Darrell has always provided a thoughtful and eloquent counterpoint to my 'Christian-bashing' (like that time I passed legislation to stop them from teaching, or marrying, or joining the army). With all honesty, I say that his own blog is far more interesting and well-rounded than mine but, before you rightfully click on over to it, stay with me for a while as I think it's past time I answered his honest, wise and pertinent thoughts. He's had me mulling for a long while so it's only fair I try to get it all out. Let's go:

IT CAN'T COME QUICKLY ENOUGH

Re: the questions you raise on your post - I'm thinking you know the answers to most of them already, which makes them rhetorical. I'll raise one of my own, which we touched on in an earlier e-mail exchange: what are the chances the North American Gay Community (a term I use without irony), given its singular and revolutionary experience in the last half-century, will promote a sexual paradigm of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety - a commonly recognized "manifesto" for humanity at large?

This ploy might seem cagey of me, but I think it touches on surprisingly common ground. The religious impulse and the sexual impulse are not that far removed (I still blush to recall a Pentecostal meeting I once attended). I do, in fact, grind my teeth when I see footage of this woman and her vile little camp. But turning tables: if some evangelical had the fortitude for it, he could walk into a bath house with a video camera and put together a documentary designed to get His People similarly "put off".

I'm the quiet guy in the corner who considers sex a sacrament, as well as marriage, and thinks the two work best when they're purposely housed beneath the same roof. To my mind, the bath house is not a physically or spiritually (I don't separate the two) healthy environment in which to experience the sacrament. I believe a human being actually needs to recover from (as a for instance) group sex.

Furthermore, it would sadden me if either of my daughters' coming-of-age experience included some time in a bath house.

But the human spirit is a resilient thing. It can survive a Warrior For The Lord boot camp; it can survive extended exposure in a bath house. But I'd say in both cases, there is more than a little "figuring it all out" required when the tenure is up.

My question to you is this: what purpose does this video serve on your blog? My guess is that most of your readers don't need convincing of the malign intentions of Evangelicals and Republicans, just as most of their number don't need convincing of the unhealthy lifestyle of the Gay Community. I'd propose that the truths which both camps need to face lie in a very uncomfortable spot between the two extremes. If we can't be the first ones (sorry - I'm gay now) to take tentative steps in that direction, I don't see much hope for progress.

But I'm just a crazy liberal that way!

Much love,
Darrell

LIGHTS

So snarky, this talk-back from that brainy Mennonite. I'd slap him but he'd just go and turn the other cheek so where's the fun in that? Seriously though, much love to Darrell in return for standing up to my ranting. Contrary to popular belief, I don't blog just to force my own opinions on people, I'm aiming at a dialogue here (for years now, I've been hoping some irritated American will write me and explain exactly WHY the Bush Republicans must remain in power -- just ONE good reason, please! -- but, alas, only silence).

Let me move along through Darrell's questions with each paragraph. First, he asks:

what are the chances the North American Gay Community...will promote a sexual paradigm of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety - a commonly recognized "manifesto" for humanity at large?

Hmmm. I'd say the chances are not bloody likely. No, I'm just kidding. Half-kidding. See, don't ask me -- I'm a misanthrope. The problem with gay people is that they're people -- they carry forth the same trust, respect, sensitivity and safety as their heterosexual friends and family, no more and no less. And, watching the evening news, I'd say hopefully no less whatsoever.

LOVERS IN THE BACKSEAT

But I'm being snide. It's unattractive. More importantly, I'm dodging the real thrust of Darrell's question which is, why do gay men have cheap, anonymous, unhealthy, promiscuous sex more often than straight people do? Sorry, my homo brothers, it IS a legitimate question but -- ah! not so fast, my straight pals -- not THAT legitimate -- I've been on craigslist lately and I also know that gays did not (as rumoured) invent the sexual revolution, we just happily rode on its coattails. No, as always, the truth is somewhere in the middle so let's talk promiscuity.

I'll get the self-blame out of the way first -- it's easy 'cause it's flimsy. We're men. We're pigs. One of the big 'Mars vs. Venus' differences I always hear about men and women is that, when it comes to sex, men want quantity over quality; women, vice-versa. That seems generally true to me. Take the ladies out of the equation and guys will happily have sex in gas station washrooms. Women only do that in movies and even then only with Brad Pitt. So yeah, there's just a lot more of it with gay guys. Variety is the spice of life and we want the whole rack. In one bowl. Now. A little self-control wouldn't be such a bad thing once in a while, fellas.

But here's where -- having cheaply attempted to exonerate slutty men based on weak theories of biology -- I now return to the more fun side of the blame game and point my finger at religion. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or what-have-you, religion has always served as a handy check on sexuality. Every horny adolescent has been stopped dead in his tracks by a lecture on how God watches everything (eeeeeeverything) a person does, that He thinks sex before marriage is sinful, that He finds your masturbation horrifying, that He absolutely hates those faggots, and that He created AIDS as a punishment for all of it. Personally, I think this makes God sound like a miserable and sadistic bastard but that's just me.

BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME

What does all that have to do with gay men not keeping it in their pants? Plenty! We get the worst of it. From the moment somebody thinks that we're gay (always before we do), we're told that our very feelings are disgusting, that it's impossible for men to feel love for one another, that every wildly-depraved sexual act possible (or impossible) is only performed by gay men, that we'll inevitably contract AIDS and deservedly die and that, because we just didn't learn our lesson from all this, we'll go to hell and burn forever in a lake of fire. Hey, they're just trying to keep us from making the wrong "choice"!

Given that twelve-ton-loaded-against-us scenario, damned either and every way, it's no wonder most gay men reject religion altogether but the real dirty secret is that their internalized belief in it all never truly goes away. Imagine how those years of self-loathing, that fear of damnation, simmer away until you're just screaming for sex, drugs, something, to quiet the voices in your head telling you how sick and filthy and worthless you are.

The people who did this to you have a solution, of course -- just accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour, give up your life of sin and live a celibate life! Wow! I could've had a V8! Of course, your heterosexual friends and family won't be joining you. They'll get married, raise children and have a healthy sex life. Everyone but you, because you're a filthy faggot. Hey, stop that crying! God loves you!

KISS YOU OFF

That's not a solution. So we're back to option B: if you're going to lead an unhappy, loveless, diseased life leading to the pits of hell, you might as well have fun on the way down. Gas station toilet sex, here we come, woooo-hoooo!

This leads us neatly into Darrell's next point about bathhouses and yeah, they're not actually spiritual places, are they? The first time I went, I envisioned a brave adventure deep into the heart of darkness. I was actually disappointed to discover, well, just another bar scene -- only with towels. There was a very fine room of weightlifting equipment and a truly gorgeous little hot tub that was literally better than sex. I left feeling a bit gutsier but with little desire to return.

But I've always been a little more...flexible in a couple. Years ago, on a dare, I went to a spa with my little blond boyfriend and we discovered certain accessories and equipment that we'd never have been able to try at home. We felt supremely naughty about it all and laughed over it long afterward. And, just this summer, I ran into someone I'd gone on a disastrous date with a couple years ago. Reunited, we danced at a club before he suggested going for a swim. "A swim?" I asked. This was downtown Toronto. What I didn't know was that the bathhouse down the street has a large outdoor pool. At 3 in the morning, we swam under the stars and soaked in a hot tub afterward as he told me his stories. I found it all very soothing.

COMFORTABLY NUMB

But enough romanticism. I'm not trying to sell anyone on a bathhouse -- far from it. If you never go, dear reader, you're missing nothing and probably gaining. The problems with bathhouses are obvious -- they're geared towards quick, anonymous trysts between people too shy, too impatient or too creepy to chat someone up in a bar, and that sheer pace makes them breeding grounds for disease. But so is the Internet. And before bathhouses, it was public parks and toilets. None of it's right, you can argue, but it's happening (for reasons I'm saving for my Big Finale coming up). Bathhouses, at least, are controlled environments with attentive staff and bowls of condoms everywhere. The debate has been going on for two decades now and there's been no 'smoking gun' either way. Personally, I think the cons outweigh the pros but, in the end, bathhouses are simply venues -- what goes on within them is as friendly or as horrible as their patons' motives. Play or prey.

That's what leads from our bathhouse conversation into the bigger picture. After telling the good and the bad, there's still the ugly: I caught a relatively minor but wildly-unpleasant sexually-transmitted disease from a guy I went home with one night. No bathhouse was needed; this was a clean, comfortable condo that was home to a tall, blond, fun-loving guy I felt comfortable with. Until things got frisky and his games proved less open to negotiation than most. I put a halt to things but only long after the encounter had gone south. Finding out I'd contracted a disease from it was the cherry on the cake.

Now I can easily imagine some uncharitable type out there saying, "Well you see? Sex with a stranger? A homo? You were asking for it!" I can imagine it because he's in my head somewhere, actually. This is where I must be clear on this -- I didn't blame anyone during this. Not Republicans, not the Christian Churches, not gay advertising egging me on, not even the guy himself, really. It was my choice. I decided to go, I decided what I was comfortable with, I decided when to leave. No one controls me.

RETURN TO OZ

But there is one nagging thought in all that -- why did I let it go on so long? Why did I (why DO I) have so much trouble standing up for myself? Why is there always that inner voice that asks me, "Who cares what YOU want? A good person wouldn't be so selfish. Who do you think you are, anyway?"

Where does that voice come from? My parents? My teachers? Eight years of Catholic grade school? I feel we're getting warmer. My scientific curiosity about the world always quashed by people who insisted that the Bible must never be doubted, that the ones holding the Bible must never be doubted. The only person I could doubt was myself. And I did. And I do. Unlike them. They've got all the answers right there in that book.

But they've never been able to answer my questions and certainly not the ones in regards to sexuality. That's the crux of the problem here. Telling a gay teen to shut up and not be gay is not an answer. Telling him he's an abomination is not an answer. Telling him he's going to hell is not an answer. If that's all the Bible has to offer, then how can anyone be surprised when people reject it and seek answers elsewhere?

I got out when I was thirteen. Faced with the prospect of going to a Catholic high school, I snapped and told my parents I had to go to a public one. My first brave act of self-protection. One of my classmates called me a traitor. He meant it.

THE OTHER SIDE

Looking back on my religious upbringing, I don't think my childhood was a bad one -- I was a bit banged-up but not damaged. Nothing severe. Beaten by nuns but not molested by priests. As Bill Maher once joked, frankly I'm a little insulted. I can joke about it, inspect the dents in my psyche like it was a car fender, but I fear how much worse it's been for others, the ones who stayed.

To stick around, trying to reconcile two utterly conflicting worldviews, leads to a particular kind of soul-death. And I could never dream up a more apt, more grotesque example than this sad bastard Mark Foley, a man who devoted his career to crafting legislation for harsher penalties against paedophiles, while secretly trying to lure his teenage congressional pages into having sex with him. The news media is horrified at this bizarre double-life, this shocking self-destruction. Idiots. I remember what I was like at eighteen, screaming in my closet, and imagine what I'd be like if I stayed like that for the next twenty-five years. I'd be Mark Foley.

I imagine him spending his days working alongside Republican family-values conservatives like Marilyn Musgrave who -- in a time of war, torture, terror and lies -- says that gay marriage "is the most important issue that we face today." Foley wants to be one of these people, he always has been, but he goes home to an empty house, drinks a few glasses of alcohol and thinks of that beautiful 16-year-old page who smiled at him yesterday. I'd feel really sorry for him except that he's a grown man who chose to hide from these people and, well, those e-mails really are gross.

The real scandal, of course, is that Foley's right-wing buddies knew how pathetic and creepy he was but, as long as he stayed quiet about it, he was still useful to them ($100,000 useful!). They just ignored the chatter:

Mark Beck-Heyman told The Washington Post warnings were circulated to steer clear of Foley, R-Fla., after he began inviting pages to his office for ice cream in notes and e-mail.
...
"Mark Foley knew that he could get away with this type of behavior with male pages because he was a congressman," said Beck-Heyman. "But many people on Capitol Hill," including many Republican staff members, "have known for over 11 years about what was going on and chose to do nothing."

Well of course not, Mark -- Republicans couldn't possibly have devoted any attention to a possible sex scandal involving one of their own trying to molest teenage boys because they were all too busy with a certain sex scandal involving Bill Clinton and an adult intern. Maybe you heard something about it. While Al-Qaeda was growing like a malignant tumour in the Middle East, America's guardians were holding month-long hearings about the President's penis and quietly hushing any talk from the congressional pages about that creepy old guy from Florida being "overly-friendly." One can't let the safety of teenagers take precedence over a big juicy impeachment.

MIGHT TELL YOU TONIGHT

My point (yep, here we are!) is that all of this nastiness might have been avoided if Foley had been allowed to come out as gay a long, long time ago. He would have run for Congress with Florida's support and found himself a solid conservative 40-year-old banker (okay let's face it, a 30-year-old banker) and settled down, leaving the teenagers alone. They could be as friendly to him as their ambition allowed and he wouldn't care. He's a married man, after all. The opposite of this is what we see far, far too often -- closet cases trolling parks and toilets, bathhouses and chatrooms, looking for intimacy-free ways to get what they need so badly. Such encounters are fleeting and rarely fulfilling so they have to keep going, faster and with greater desperation until something terrible happens. The closet kills.

EVERYBODY WANTS THE SAME THING

Darrell talks about 'sex as sacrament.' I believe that too -- or at least I used to. Clive Barker wrote a lovely book called Sacrament that took that theme, celebrated it, shook it around, warped it and came out the other side into beauty. Such a wonderful guy. I've been lucky enough to have had that feeling of sinking into another person on every level -- physically, mentally, spiritually -- and frowned at the big city 'sex as handshake' model. I used to try and see their side when right-wingers railed about gay sexual excess. Big warehouse orgy parties ARE over-the-top and safe-sex is not practised nearly as much as it needs to be. Road to hell and all.

The gay marriage revolution seemed to be the compromise we needed. Homophobes would have to accept our relationships, while we gays 'settled down' into comfy pair-bonds just like them. Couples would all be united in suburbia together, waving over the fence and inviting each other over for barbeques. But, like the joke goes, a liberal is someone who thinks his opinion IS the compromise. Suddenly, the conservatives were no longer complaining about gay promiscuity; they were complaining that faggots dared to equate their relationships to their own. What nerve! Suddenly, the compromise I saw was instead the end of civilized society. Was I wrong? Should I doubt myself? Nope, because I realized that this wasn't about marriage, this wasn't about society, this wasn't about rights. This was merely the same old song: shut up, go away, who do you think you are, anyway?

Conservatives don't really care about the health of gay people or the well-being of society or the state of marriage -- they just want us gone. Or at least tucked away in silence like Mark Foley. They knew for years that he was a quiet, pathetic, predatory pervert and they liked him that way.

Well, sorry kids, but I thought we settled this argument years ago -- silence=death, remember? We're here, we're queer, get used to it. This is what frustrates Darrell as much as myself -- the louder and angrier the Christian Right gets, the louder and angrier the militant gay activists become, and vice versa. The crazier the right gets, the more frustrated I get; the more I spout off, the more threatened they feel (and they feel threatened by everything). In a time of jihad, the reasonable middle ground seems shakier than ever.

But hey, I've got a little magazine now. It's silly and shallow and generally worthless but it's up against Newsweek and Fox News and billionaire Pat Robertson's 700 Club. Feels almost like a fair fight.

TAKE YOUR MAMA

My only real obstacle is that hoary old lie that 'the gays are coming for the children.' That's what all of this is about. Even the most violent homophobe could accept me if I'd just 'keep it to myself' (whatever that could mean) but they panic when they realize that the teenagers are listening. They think our tales of ribaldry are SO fascinating, SO intoxicating that entire high schools will go queer overnight. How flattering! Such a delightful notion but an utterly impossible one. Darrell can rest easy knowing that I'll never be able to lure his children into a bathhouse [attention crazy people: I am SO kidding! xo!]

You see, Mark Foley notwithstanding, we've never wanted the children -- at least not all of them. We could never turn their children gay (How? I was never turned straight) but, in the long run, we WILL take their children. We'll take the gay ones. The ones they teach to hate themselves, the ones they toss aside as worthless, the ones to whom they offer no hope. We'll take them in and give them the answers their parents never did.

Me, I'll be doing what I've always done -- listen to them, talk to them, rant at them and help them look at the bigger picture. I won't even have to work that hard -- they're coming out younger and younger now, with less and less damage. Many of them don't even like being called gay, even though they'll openly hold hands with their boyfriend in the street. Yes, I've worked hard to destroy society and replace it with this: young people happy in love. Read the paper lately? We need more of them, not less.

FILTHY GORGEOUS

I wrap up with one last anecdote, surprised at how chatty I'm being for someone who's never wanted to discuss his sex life on a blog. See? Repression! Look what it leads to...

A few years ago, I was madly, madly in love with that little blond boy who, well, just didn't feel the same. He did at first, I know that, but not after a year or so and I was too stupid or too in love (same thing?) to understand the change. I wanted to marry this boy -- sex as sacrament -- but there was one night too many lying in bed with a stranger who looked like him. No cheap one-night-stand could ever be as grim and soulless as this.

Finally facing reality, I broke up with him. I was 30 and convinced that my life was over. My love was gone, my youth was gone. Yeah, I know -- I was an idiot. But a dismally-unhappy one and I tried to make myself feel better by 'getting right back on the horse.' So I was at a dance club one night and found myself being eyed by someone really adorable. I felt hopeful again for the first time in weeks. We got to talking but, as it often happens, he had a boyfriend. I slinked away, only to soon find the boyfriend wanting to dance with me. In my lingering fog of heartbreak and disappointment, it never occurred to me that one of them would want me, let alone two, but I was invited back to their hotel room.

Now again, there's always risks. They could've turned out like a double-version of that horrible one-night-stand guy; they could've just been leading me on for kicks; they could've even robbed, beaten and left me for dead like Matthew Shepard. I only knew I had to try. We stayed up most of the night before I fell asleep tucked between them, arms and legs everywhere.

The next morning, we heard the cleaning women talking out in the hall. One of the guys sat up in a panic. "Did you put the 'do not disturb' on the door?" he blurted. "I thought you did!" said the other. He leapt out of the bed, down the hall and locked the door just as the cleaner was turning the handle. Hollering an apology through the door, he hopped back into bed and, a moment later, the three of us erupted with laughter, picturing the woman's face if she'd walked into the room. We chatted, we had breakfast and I went home.

It was a bright Sunday morning and I walked down Bay Street with a huge goofy grin on my face. I felt big. I felt brave, I felt funny, I felt sexy, I felt healed, I felt whole. Mournful thoughts of my ex-future-husband, like cobwebs in my head, were brushed away. I'd had a lovely night of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety far better then anything in the past year. This skanky little encounter in a bar had given me hope. It was fun and open and honest and it felt like a sacrament.

Labels: back in the day, evolution, fab, friends, health, homo-a-go-go, insanity, introspective, politics, religion, Trawna, writing

And somehow you manage to meet deadline, too! Thank you for this, Scott - it's quite an honour to have one's words given this sort of consideration. In the future, though, I'll keep my e-mails shorter and less provocative (the better to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome!)

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at October 06, 2006

 

I've been thinking a lot about this post (and not just because of the brilliant use of Scissor Sisters), but especially in terms of the belief of sex as sacrament. Like Scott, Clive Barker's Sacrament is one of my favourite books. But I've also deconstructed a lot of the false value that society has placed on the sexual act, mostly through the study of history and ancient religions. Traditionally, marriage was a property transaction between a thirty year-old man and the father of a fourteen year-old girl, and it was imperative that the woman have sexual fidelity in order to ensure that there was a proper line of inheritance. How this is exactly sacred I'm not sure, other than the religion built up justification for the social mores of the day. But looking back at ancient cultures that placed tremendous value on the sexual act for the very act itself, who didn't fill it with all kinds of artificial value judgements and who saw the beauty in it for what it was, I really think that perhaps we as a society need to recall that ethic and reclaim it for what it is. Casual sex is only really empty or damaging if we tell ourselves that the only "proper" way to have sex is within the confines of marriage. It doesn't have to be empty or damaging if we treat it for what it is, and honour it for what it is. Adding value judgements only serves to mystify the process and creates the very harm that it seeks to prevent.

-- Reply posted by  The Guy in DKNY at October 10, 2006

 

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Because I don't yet know of any other way to stop what's coming:



Any ideas? Reason seems a bit tapped out right now...

Labels: insanity, politics, religion

Other than the statement that they are worshipping George Bush, I see nothing wrong with it.

-- Reply posted by  Your Christian Buddy at September 21, 2006

 

This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at September 21, 2006

 

Sorry - I removed my earlier comment and tweaked it a bit, thusly:

Well, I won't be sending either of my kids there. But having endured a smidgen of what we're shown at roughly the same age as these weeping youngsters, I can't get too exercised about what's going on. The "secular liberal feminist" (BOO! HISS!! GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN!! sorry - a little flashback happening, there) doesn't seem too fazed, either - possibly recognizing that it's typical of kids to adopt their parents' religious tenets to a degree that their parents cannot. The more likely scenario is these kids, once they reach late adolescence, will transform into either unendurable hell-raisers, or into moderates with an above-average grasp of reasonable discourse who mostly eschew the emotional indulgences of their childhoods.

Having said that, I (Your OTHER Christian Buddy) believe the matron of this camp could seriously stand to have her world-view get a biblically-based readjustment. But that could just be the "liberal" in me, coming once again to the fore!

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at September 21, 2006

 

Thanks for chiming in, guys, and talking me off the ledge. I'm glad my Christian buddy agrees that worshipping a President (any President) is a really bad idea and I recognize Whiskey's point that, yeah, a lot of these kids will naturally rebel and cast this stuff aside when they're older.

Oddly though, that part bothers me a bit -- given that this zealous indoctrination is bound to fail in the long run, why not try and keep them 'in the fold' by teaching them religion in the same way we teach philosophy, science or math? Reasonably, and with discussion.

I went to a Catholic grade school and was intrigued by religion until the nuns started strapping my hands when I asked legitimate questions about the faith.

Or later, when my fascination with science bumped up against some of the religion's sillier aspects, I was told by teachers to shut up and obey. Even as a kid, I found that authoritarian, undemocratic and, well, creepy. I decided on my own to go to a public high school after that.

And I was lucky. I have gay friends who were raised in fundamentalism and, however happier they are now, the church still did serious damage to them. Damage they've spent their lives recovering from.

Somewhere in that video's roomful of crying children is a future gay teen, who'll have to choose between his innate sexuality or God. Why must he? I'm not telling him to be an atheist or some Enemy of God so why does he have to be a Warrior for Jesus? Who's he going to war with?

-- Reply posted by  Scott at September 21, 2006

 

You're just jealous because there are Christian training camps but there aren't any Gay training camps...

...err...there AREN'T are there?

-- Reply posted by  Your Christian Buddy at September 22, 2006

 

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Boston Globe writer Johnny Diaz deserves huge credit for being out on the job but, as he reports from this year's National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association conference, it's Thomas Roberts from CNN who deserves huge applause: "Being a panel speaker at a gay journalists conference, he said, was the biggest step he took to really being out in public."

This, however, is not the bravest thing Roberts has done. Years ago, he came forward to testify against Jerome Toohey Jr., a Catholic priest who'd molested Roberts and another high schooler back in the eighties. Roberts' mother feared that her son might be gay and sent him to the priest for counseling.

Roberts told the audience that he's discussing his sexuality now because he's "proud of his partner" and, while people continue to speculate about the sex life of another CNN anchor, Roberts advises, "When you hold something back, that's all everyone wants to know." Exactly.

Sadly, there may be a point to that hiding -- mere days after his announcement, Roberts' 6 o'clock newscast has been cancelled. I hope there's no connection there but, either way, congratulations to a man who not only deals in the truth but lives it.

Labels: homo-a-go-go, media, religion, tributes

This is my final two weeks as a human being. On September 25th, I will start work at fab magazine as an editor -- a move that will hopefully boost my career while apparently reducing my humanity. Yes, I will be a Professional Homosexual. That's the term people use when you're "too gay," when you're a gay man with a gay job, living in a gay neighbourhood with a dog that might be a lesbian.

People who say these things are usually gays who wish they weren't (because they're still gay), or straight people who have issues with us (because they're probably gay), or Christianists who feel we're taking over and then panic (because they're totally gay):

...another Amazon fan has caught the Internet behemoth promoting "Gay & Lesbian" programming for downloads..."Nestled nicely between 'Educational & Learning' and 'Kids & Family' is 'Gay and Lesbian,'" Luffman told WND. "They allow you to expand on this section of selections to include many more genres but curiously 'Gay & Lesbian' is among the smallest of offerings in the long list. Given this, why the effort to promote G&L in the short list?"

...the short list includes "Action & Adventure" with 77 choices, "Animation & Cartoons" with 35, "Reality TV" with 51 and others, including "G&L" with 3 choices and "Classic TV" with 5. In the expanded list, but unpromoted in the short list, are "Documentaries" with 110 offerings, "International" with 13, "Mystery" with 38 and even "Westerns' with 14.

I like the "nestled nicely" bit -- given the pattern of E-G-K, my da Vinci Code tells me that the Amazon conspirators are using the arcane system of alphabetical order to brainwash America. Kudos to WorldNetDaily for unveiling the secret threat posed by 3 whole films!

I tease these loons, even though they and I are oddly united in our struggle -- I too oppose this unseemly "Gay and Lesbian" category. Get rid of it, I say! I want gay "Action & Adventure," gay "Animation & Cartoons," gay "Reality TV," gay "Documentaries," gay "Mysteries" and yes, gay "Westerns" (must Brokeback Mountain and Red River be the only ones?). Not EVERY movie has to be gay, just -- oh I don't know -- 10% of them. Because I believe that dropping that G&L category will better reflect reality, while the Christianists believe that dropping it will alter reality. Hey guys, let me know how that works out for you.

In the meantime, I'll be spending my gay dollars at the Internet bohemoth that supports me and my category (there's your conspiracy, dumbass)...

Labels: fab, homo-a-go-go, insanity, religion, Tegan the Jack Russell Terrorist

Congratulations on the new job, and on becoming a Professional Homosexual! I expect more good things from you out of fab.

-- Reply posted by  The Guy in DKNY at September 13, 2006

 

Well, what did you expect when you named her "Tegan"?

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at September 13, 2006

 

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I briefly flirted with going on a rant about how the Republican campaign guy who smeared Al Gore in 2000 is now being charged with -- quelle surprise -- child molestation, but I've already listed over fifty such examples. The right-wing horror machine is finally exhausting even me.

Instead, I'm just going to reprint this piece by Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College at Columbia University, New York. He's one of the heroes trying to take the evil out of evangelical. Normally, I'd just provide a link but this essay rocks so very hard, I had to print it all in hopes that more people will read it:

Jesus Is Not a Republican

By RANDALL BALMER

In November 2002, 30 years after my previous visit to Wheaton College to hear George McGovern, I approached the podium in Edman Chapel to address the student body. At evangelical colleges like Wheaton, in Illinois, there are two kinds of required gatherings: chapel and convocation. The former is religious in nature, whereas a speaker at convocation has the license to be far more discursive, even secular — or political. The college's chaplain, however, had invited me to preach in chapel, not convocation, and so, despite temptation, I delivered a homily that was, as I recall, not overly long, appropriate to the occasion, and reasonably well received.

I doubt very much that I will be invited back to Edman Chapel. One of the benefits of being reared within evangelicalism, I suppose, is that you understand the workings of the evangelical subculture. I know, for example, that when my new book on evangelicals appears, the minions of the religious right will seek to discredit me rather than engage the substance of my arguments. The initial wave of criticism, as an old friend who has endured similar attacks reminded me, will be to deny that I am, in fact, really an evangelical Christian. When that fails — and I'll put up my credentials as an evangelical against anyone's! — the next approach will be some gratuitous personal attack: that I am a member of the academic elite, spokesman for the Northeastern establishment, misguided liberal, prodigal son, traitor to the faith, or some such. Another evangelical friend with political convictions similar to mine actually endured a heresy trial.

The evangelical subculture, which prizes conformity above all else, doesn't suffer rebels gladly, and it is especially intolerant of anyone with the temerity to challenge the shibboleths of the religious right. I understand that. Despite their putative claims to the faith, the leaders of the religious right are vicious toward anyone who refuses to kowtow to their version of orthodoxy, and their machinery of vilification strikes with ruthless, dispassionate efficiency. Longtime friends (and not a few family members) will shuffle uneasily around me and studiously avoid any sort of substantive conversation about the issues I raise — and then quietly strike my name from their Christmas-card lists. Circle the wagons. Brook no dissent.

And so, since my chances of being invited back to Edman Chapel have dropped from slim to none, I offer here an outline of what I would like to say to the students at Wheaton and, by extension, to evangelicals everywhere.

Evangelicals have come a long way since my visit to Edman Chapel in 1972. We have moved from cultural obscurity — almost invisibility — to becoming a major force in American society. Jimmy Carter's run for the presidency launched us into the national consciousness, but evangelicals abandoned Carter by the end of the 1970s, as the nascent religious right forged an alliance with the Republican Party.

In terms of cultural and political influence, that alliance has been a bonanza for both sides. The coalition dominates talk radio and controls a growing number of state legislatures and local school boards. It is seeking, with some initial success, to recast Hollywood and the entertainment industry. The Republicans have come to depend on religious-right voters as their most reliable constituency, and, with the Republicans firmly in command of all three branches of the federal government, leaders of the religious right now enjoy unprecedented access to power.

And what has the religious right done with its political influence? Judging by the platform and the policies of the Republican Party — and I'm aware of no way to disentangle the agenda of the Republican Party from the goals of the religious right — the purpose of all this grasping for power looks something like this: an expansion of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the continued prosecution of a war in the Middle East that enraged our longtime allies and would not meet even the barest of just-war criteria, and a rejiggering of Social Security, the effect of which, most observers agree, would be to fray the social-safety net for the poorest among us. Public education is very much imperiled by Republican policies, to the evident satisfaction of the religious right, and it seeks to replace science curricula with theology, thereby transforming students into catechumens.

America's grossly disproportionate consumption of energy continues unabated, prompting demands for oil exploration in environmentally sensitive areas. The Bush administration has jettisoned U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which called on Americans to make at least a token effort to combat global warming. Corporate interests are treated with the kind of reverence and deference once reserved for the deity.

The Bible contains something like 2,000 references to the poor and the believer's responsibility for the poor. Sadly, that obligation seems not to have trickled down into public policy. On judicial matters, the religious right demands appointees who would diminish individual rights to privacy with regard to abortion. At the same time, it approves a corresponding expansion of presidential powers, thereby disrupting the constitutionally mandated system of checks and balances.

The torture of human beings, God's creatures — some guilty of crimes, others not — has been justified by the Bush administration, which also believes that it is perfectly acceptable to conduct surveillance on American citizens without putting itself to the trouble of obtaining a court order. Indeed, the chicanery, the bullying, and the flouting of the rule of law that emanates from the nation's capital these days make Richard Nixon look like a fraternity prankster.

Where does the religious right stand in all this? Following the revelations that the U.S. government exported prisoners to nations that have no scruples about the use of torture, I wrote to several prominent religious-right organizations. Please send me, I asked, a copy of your organization's position on the administration's use of torture. Surely, I thought, this is one issue that would allow the religious right to demonstrate its independence from the administration, for surely no one who calls himself a child of God or who professes to hear "fetal screams" could possibly countenance the use of torture. Although I didn't really expect that the religious right would climb out of the Republican Party's cozy bed over the torture of human beings, I thought perhaps they might poke out a foot and maybe wiggle a toe or two.

I was wrong. Of the eight religious-right organizations I contacted, only two, the Family Research Council and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, answered my query. Both were eager to defend administration policies. "It is our understanding, from statements released by the Bush administration," the reply from the Family Research Council read, "that torture is already prohibited as a means of collecting intelligence data." The Institute on Religion and Democracy stated that "torture is a violation of human dignity, contrary to biblical teachings," but conceded that it had "not yet produced a more comprehensive statement on the subject," even months after the revelations. Its president worried that the "anti-torture campaign seems to be aimed exclusively at the Bush administration," thereby creating a public-relations challenge.

I'm sorry, but the use of torture under any circumstances is a moral issue, not a public-relations dilemma.

And what about abortion, the issue that the religious right decided in the early 1980s was its signature concern? Since January 2003, the Republican and religious-right coalition has controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress — yet, curiously, it has not tried to outlaw abortion. Why? Could it be that its members are less interested in actually reducing the incidence of abortion itself (in which case they should seek to alter public opinion on the matter) than in continuing to use abortion as a potent political weapon?

Equally striking is the rhetoric that leaders of the religious right use to motivate their followers. In the course of traveling around the country, I have been impressed anew by the pervasiveness of the language of militarism among leaders of the religious right. Patrick Henry College, according to its founding president, Michael Farris, "is training an army of young people who will lead the nation and shape the culture with biblical values." Rod Parsley, pastor of World Harvest Church, in Ohio, issues swords to those who join his organization, the Center for Moral Clarity, and calls on his followers to "lock and load" for a "Holy Ghost invasion." The Traditional Values Coalition advertises its "Battle Plan" to take over the federal judiciary. "I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare," Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, famously declared about his political tactics in 1997. I wonder how that sounds in the ears of the Prince of Peace.

Such rhetoric and policies are a scandal, a reproach to the gospel I honor and to the Jesus I love. I went to Sunday school nearly every week of my childhood. But I must have been absent the day they told us that the followers of Jesus were obliged to secure even greater economic advantages for the affluent, to deprive those Jesus called "the least of these" of a living wage, and to despoil the environment by sacrificing it on the altar of free enterprise. I missed the lesson telling me that I should turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, even those designated as my enemies.

The Bible I read says something quite different. It tells the story of ancient Israel's epic struggle against injustice and bondage — and of the Almighty's investment in the outcome of that struggle. But the Hebrew Scriptures also caution against the imperiousness of that people, newly liberated from their oppressors, lest they treat others the way they themselves were treated back in Egypt. The prophets enjoin Yahweh's chosen people to "act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" and warn of the consequences of failing to do so: exile and abandonment. "Administer true justice," the prophet Zechariah declares on behalf of the Lord Almighty. "Show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other."

The New Testament echoes those themes, calling the followers of Jesus to care for orphans and widows, to clothe the naked, and to shelter the homeless. The New Testament I read says that, in the eyes of Jesus, there is no preference among the races and no distinction between the sexes. The Jesus I try to follow tells me that those who take on the role of peacemakers "will be called the children of God," and this same Jesus spells out the kind of behavior that might be grounds for exclusion from the kingdom of heaven: "I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."

We could have a lively discussion and even vigorous disagreement over whether it is incumbent upon the government to provide services to the poor, but those who argue against such measures should be prepared with some alternative program or apparatus.

The agenda of the Republican-religious-right coalition, moreover, is utterly disconsonant with the distinguished record of evangelical activists in the 19th century. They interpreted the teachings of Jesus to mean that, yes, they really did bear responsibility for those on the margins of society, especially for the emancipation of slaves and for the rights of women.

In addition to distorting the teachings of Jesus, the religious right has also been cavorting with some rather unsavory characters in its quest for political and cultural power. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who last year pleaded guilty to accepting $2.4-million worth of bribes, had earned a 100-percent approval rating from Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition while a member of the House of Representatives. During more than two decades as a member of the state Legislature, Jim West, a former mayor of Spokane, Wash., sponsored various bills aimed at curtailing the rights of gays and lesbians, as well as a bill that would have outlawed any consensual sexual contact between teenagers; the voters of Spokane recalled West last December, after he admitted to arranging gay sexual liaisons over the Internet and offering city jobs in exchange for sexual favors.

For the better part of three decades now, we've been treated to the moral sermonizing of William J. Bennett, who wrote The Book of Virtues and served as Ronald Reagan's secretary of education and as one of Bill Clinton's most relentless critics. We now know that Bennett is a compulsive gambler. Ralph Reed, currently a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia — the first step on his road to the White House — has always preached against gambling as part of his "family values" rhetoric. He has also done consulting work for Enron (which engaged in other forms of gambling) and accepted as much as $4.2-million from Indian tribes intent on maintaining a regional monopoly for their casinos. "I need to start humping in corporate accounts," he wrote to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Tony Perkins, a graduate of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University and head of the Family Research Council, arguably the most influential religious-right organization aside from Focus on the Family, has had ties to white-supremacist organizations in his native Louisiana.

The purpose in ticking off a roll call of rogues associated with the religious right (and the list could have been longer) is not to single individuals out for obloquy and certainly not to suggest the absence of moral failings on the other side of the political spectrum — though I must say that some of this behavior makes Bill Clinton's adolescent dalliances pale by comparison. The point, rather, is to argue that those who make it their business to demand high standards of moral rectitude from others ought to be able to approach those standards themselves. My evangelical theology tells me that we are, all of us, sinners and flawed individuals. But it also teaches the importance of confession, restitution, and amendment of behavior — whether it be an adulterous tryst, racial intolerance, or prevarication in the service of combating one's enemies. We have seen nothing of the sort from these putatively Christian power brokers.

"Do not be misled," St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians. "Bad company corrupts good character." Jesus himself asked: "What good would it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?" The coalition with the Republican Party is blasphemy, pure and simple.

It has also led to a denigration of the faith. The early years of the religious right provide a case in point. The pursuit of political power and influence in the 1980s came at a fearsome price. For most of the 20th century, evangelicalism had existed primarily within its own subculture, one that protected individuals from the depredations of the world. It was an insular universe, and the world outside of the subculture, including the political realm, was corrupt and corrupting. Believers beware. Along about 1980, however, evangelicals, newly intoxicated with political power and cultural influence, succumbed to the seductions of the culture. It was during the Reagan years that we began to hear about the so-called prosperity gospel, the notion that God will reward true believers with the emoluments of this world. Evangelicalism was still a subculture in the 1980s, but it was no longer a counterculture. It had lost its edge, its capacity for cultural critique.

A number of people have asked me what the religious right wants. What would America look like if the religious right had its way? I've thought long and hard about that question, and the best answer I can come up with is that the religious right hankers for the kind of homogeneous theocracy that the Puritans tried to establish in 17th-century Massachusetts: to impose their vision of a moral order on all of society.

The Puritans left England and crossed the Atlantic in the 1630s to construct what John Winthrop called a "city on a hill," an example to the rest of the world. The Puritans configured church and state so the two would be both coterminous and mutually reinforcing, but only one form of worship was permitted.

Without question, Puritanism in 17th-century Massachusetts was a grand and noble vision, but it ultimately collapsed beneath its own weight, beneath the arrogance of its own pretensions. By the middle of the century, Puritanism had become ingrown and calcified, the founding generation unable to transmit its piety to its children. By the waning decades of the century, in the face of encroaching pluralism — Anglicans and Quakers — and the rise of a merchant class, the Puritan ministers of Massachusetts were making increasingly impassioned, frantic calls for repentance. What frightened them — no less than the leaders of the religious right at the turn of the 21st century — was pluralism.

Despite the best efforts of the Puritan clergy, spirituality in New England continued to languish into the 18th century. The tide began to turn when fresher and more energetic preachers entered the scene in the 1730s. George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, Isaac Backus, and others challenged the cozy relationship between church and state and thereby reinvigorated religion in New England. The force of their ideas and their assault on the status quo spread throughout the Atlantic colonies in an utterly transformative event known as the Great Awakening.

The lesson was clear. Religion functions best outside the political order, and often as a challenge to the political order. When it identifies too closely with the state, it becomes complacent and ossified, and efforts to coerce piety or to proscribe certain behavior in the interests of moral conformity are unavailing.

Thankfully, the founding fathers recognized that wisdom and codified it into the First Amendment, the best friend that religion has ever had. The First Amendment was a concession to pluralism, and its guarantee of a "free market" of religion has ensured a salubrious religious marketplace unmatched anywhere else in the world.

Unfortunately, some of the clergy in New England still refused to concede their prerogatives and surrender to the religious marketplace. Congregationalists in Massachusetts and Connecticut clung stubbornly to their establishment status, not wanting to forfeit the tax subsidies afforded them by the state. From his post in Litchfield, Conn., Lyman Beecher resisted "the fall of the standing order" in Connecticut. In 1820, however, a scant two years after Connecticut did away with state-subsidized religion (Massachusetts would follow suit in 1833, the last state to do so), Beecher was forced to repent. Although he and his fellow Congregationalist ministers had feared "that our children would scatter like partridges," the effect of disestablishment was quite the opposite. "Before we had been standing on what our fathers had done," Beecher recalled in his autobiography, "but now we were obliged to develop all our energy." After disestablishment, he wrote, "there came such a time of revival as never before."

The leaders of the religious right are also frightened by pluralism. That's understandable, especially for a movement that propagates the ideology that America is — and always has been — a Christian nation. Pluralism is messy. It requires understanding, accommodation, and tolerance, especially if we hope to maintain some semblance of comity and social order. The Puritans hated pluralism, as did the Protestants of the 19th century in the face of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Italy. Changes in the immigration laws in 1965 brought to the United States new hues of ethnic and religious pluralism, a rich and diverse palette unimaginable to the Protestants of the 1950s, let alone to the Puritans of the 1650s.

By the late 1970s, the leaders of the religious right felt their hegemony over American society slipping away. One reading of the religious right is that many evangelicals believed that their faith could no longer compete in the new, expanded religious marketplace. No wonder the religious right wants to renege on the First Amendment. No wonder the religious right seeks to encode its version of morality into civil and criminal law. No wonder the religious right wants to emblazon its religious creeds and symbols on public property. Faced now with a newly expanded religious marketplace, it wants to change the rules of engagement so that evangelicals can enjoy a competitive advantage. Rather than gear up for new competition, as Beecher did in the 19th century, the religious right seeks to use the machinations of government and public policy to impose its vision of a theocratic order.

But pluralism is a good thing. It keeps religious groups from resting on their laurels — or their endowments, in the case of mainline Protestantism — and makes them competitive in the marketplace of ideas.

Ironically, the one movement that, more than any other, has in the past exploited the free marketplace of religion to its advantage is evangelical Protestantism. Evangelicals have understood almost instinctively how to speak the idiom of the culture, whether it be the open-air preaching of George Whitefield in the 18th century, the circuit riders and the camp meetings of the antebellum period, the urban revivalism of Billy Sunday at the turn of the 20th century, or the use of radio and television by various preachers in the 20th and 21st centuries.

America has been kind to religion, but not because the government has imposed religious faith or practice on its citizens. Quite the opposite. Religion has flourished because religious belief and expression have been voluntary, not compulsory. We are a religious people precisely because we have recognized the rights of our citizens to be religious in a different way from us, or even not to be religious at all. We are simultaneously a people of faith and citizens of a pluralistic society, one in which Americans believe that it is inappropriate, even oppressive, to impose the religious views of a minority — or even of a majority — on all of society. That is the genius of America, and it is also the reason that religion thrives here as nowhere else.

As I argued in my testimony as an expert witness in the Alabama Ten Commandments case, religion has prospered in this country precisely because the government has stayed out of the religion business. The tireless efforts on the part of the religious right to eviscerate the First Amendment in the interests of imposing its own theocratic vision ultimately demeans the faith even as it undermines the foundations of a democratic order that thrives on pluralism.

Jesus himself recognized that his followers held a dual citizenship. "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's," he said, "and to God what is God's." Negotiating that dual status can be fraught, but it is incumbent upon responsible citizens of this earthly realm to abide by certain standards of behavior deemed essential for the functioning of the social order. Much as I would like all of my fellow Americans to be Christians or vegetarians or Democrats, I have no right to demand it. The leaders of the religious right have failed to observe even the most basic etiquette of democracy.

Is there a better way? Yes, I think so. It begins with an acknowledgement that religion in America has always functioned best from the margins, outside of the circles of power, and that any grasping for religious hegemony ultimately trivializes and diminishes the faith. The Puritans of the 17th century learned that lesson the hard way, as did the mainline Protestants of the 1950s, who sought to identify their faith with the white, middle-class values of the Eisenhower era. In both cases, it was the evangelicals who stepped in and offered a corrective, a vibrant expression of the faith untethered to cultural institutions that issued, first, in the Great Awakening and, second, in the evangelical resurgence of the 1970s.

For America's evangelicals, reclaiming the faith would produce a social and political ethic rather different from the one propagated by the religious right. Care for the earth and for God's creation provides a good place to start, building on the growing evangelical discontent with the rapacious environmental policies of the Republican-religious-right coalition. Once thinking evangelicals challenge religious-right orthodoxy on environmental matters, further challenges are possible. A full-throated, unconditional denunciation of the use of torture, even on political enemies, would certainly follow. Evangelicals opposed to abortion would be well advised to follow some Catholic teaching a bit further on this issue. As early as 1984, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the late archbishop of Chicago, talked about opposition to abortion as part of a "seamless garment" that included other "life issues": care for the poor and feeding the hungry, advocacy for human rights, and unequivocal opposition to capital punishment. Surely the adoption of what Bernardin called a "consistent ethic of life" carries with it greater moral authority than opposition to abortion alone.

As for abortion itself, evangelicals should consider carefully where they invest their energies on this matter. Both sides of the abortion debate acknowledge that making abortion illegal will not stop abortion itself; it will make abortions more dangerous for the life and health of the mother. The other complication is legal and constitutional. Especially at a time when the government's surveillance activities are already intruding on the privacy and the civil liberties of Americans, we should consider carefully the wisdom of allowing the government to determine a matter properly left to a woman and her conscience.

I have no interest in making abortion illegal; I would like to make it unthinkable. The most effective way to limit the incidence of abortion is to change the moral climate surrounding the issue — through education or even through public-service campaigns similar to those that discourage smoking or drugs or alcohol or spousal abuse.

Taking such a broader approach to "life issues" would affect evangelical attitudes not only toward abortion and capital punishment but also to matters related to race and to the poor. The social and economic policies of this nation seem to have created a permanent underclass. If evangelicals believe that God cares about the fate of a fetus, it shouldn't require a huge leap in logic to surmise that God also cares about people of color or prisoners or immigrants or people with an orientation other than heterosexual.

Finally, an evangelical social and political ethic would take into account the pluralistic context of American society and recognize the genius of the First Amendment. That requires respect for the canons of democracy and for the importance of public education to ensure its future. It acknowledges, for example, that the proper venue for the teaching of creationism or intelligent design is the home or the Sunday-school classroom, not the science curriculum. It means refusing to identify the symbols of the faith — the Bible, prayer, the Decaloguewith the political order. In short, our best hope for the recovery of an evangelical social and political ethic lies with recognizing that the faith functions best independent of the political order.

Indeed, one of the hallmarks of this grand experiment of democracy in America has been its vigilance over the rights of minorities. Evangelicals should appreciate that, for they were once a minority themselves. Evangelicals need once again to learn to be a counterculture, much as they were before the rise of the religious right, before succumbing to the seductions of power. The early followers of Jesus were a counterculture because they stood apart from the prevailing order. A counterculture can provide a critique of the powerful because it is utterly disinterested — it has no investment in the power structure itself.

Indeed, the most effective and vigorous religious movements in American history have identified with the downtrodden and have positioned themselves on the fringes of society rather than at the centers of power. The Methodists of the 19th century come to mind, as do the Mormons. In the 20th century, Pentecostalism, which initially appealed to the lower classes and made room for women and people of color, became perhaps the most significant religious movement of the century.

The leaders of the religious right have led their sheep astray from the gospel of Jesus Christ to the false gospel of neoconservative ideology and into the maw of the Republican Party. And yet my regard for the flock and my respect for their integrity is undiminished. Ultimately it is they who must reclaim the gospel and rescue us from the distortions of the religious right.

The Bible I read tells of freedom for captives and deliverance from oppression. It teaches that those who refuse to act with justice or who neglect the plight of those less fortunate have some explaining to do. But the Bible is also about good news. It promises redemption and forgiveness, a chance to start anew and, with divine help, to get it right. My evangelical theology assures me that no one, not even Karl Rove or James Dobson, lies beyond the reach of redemption, and that even a people led astray can find their way home.

That sounds like good news to me. Very good news indeed.

Labels: George W Bush, religion

"You gravely misunderestimate the power of the link, young padewan!"

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at June 21, 2006

 

That's true, Master Jedi, but the ways of the newspaper server are as mysterious as the Force.

I figure I can grant the Professor some of my own storage space in exchange for keeping this gorgeous essay around for a while!

-- Reply posted by  Scott at June 22, 2006

 

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I once watched a nine-year-old boy stab a hooker to death.

No, not really but virtually -- an unlucky digital prostitute in Grand Theft Auto who wandered by the wrong carjacking. "That's kinda cruel, isn't it?" I said to the kid but he just laughed and shrugged, clearly capable of distinguishing between his fantasy killing spree and the real world. I asked his dad about it and he seemed fine so I figure it's none of my business.

Being so tolerant of virtual crime-wave murder means, however, that I can't get too worked up about the upcoming series of fundamentalist video games based on the disturbingly-popular Left Behind series. I'd be a hypocrite if I were bothered more by the notion of Christian "Tribulation Forces" using "physical and spiritual warfare: using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world." All I can say is wow, it's hard out there for a pimp!

Labels: family, religion

I'm in such a good mood today, even Office Hell can't bring me down (though it's trying its damnedest) -- I went out for lunch in the gorgeous sun, I bought a new pair of my beloved Chuck Taylor sneakers and I had the brilliant new Pet Shop Boys album pounding through my headphones.

Why, I'm so jolly, I didn't blink an eye when I read this transcript of Sunday's sermon from Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr., pastor of the 7,000-strong Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, in Washington, D.C.:

"It takes a real man to confess Jesus as lord and savior. I'm not talking about no faggot or no sissy. Wait a minute! Let all the real men come on down here and take a bow. All the real men -- I'm talking about the straight men. You ain't funny, and you ain't cranky, but you're straight. Come on down here and walk around and praise God that you are straight. Thank him that you're straight. All the straight men that's proud to be a Christian, that's proud to be a man of God."

And my family wonders why I don't go to church.

But you see? Any other day and I'd be all "Church this, Bishop that, grr, grr" but today? I found that friggin' hilarious! "Thank you, Jesus, for making me straight" -- that is comedy gold! And it's so nice of Bishop Owens to define the terms for us. Now I can proudly say:
I'm funny, I'm cranky, I'm gay!

Labels: Pet Shop Boys, religion

You know that feeling you get when you read something so crazy it borders on science fiction? I get that feeling from George Grant's now mercifully-out-of-print yet still influential book, "The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action." This passage from page 81 in particular gives me night sweats:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ – to have dominion in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less.

Honestly, don't these guys know what they sound like???

What's particularly frustrating is that men like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson will take all the same ideas, tone down the crazy (somewhat) and pass them along to FOX News as mainstream conservative thinking.

A gay conservative Christian named Bruce Bawer wrote a book around the same time, a decade ago, called "A Place at the Table." Bawer made a strong case to these people for gay equal rights but how successful could he be? They don't want him sitting at the table. They want the whole table, the dining room, the entire house. It's dominion they are after.

Labels: religion

Cheers to Andrew Sullivan for some delightfully-shallow researching:

Google has a new feature called Google Trends. It tracks the number of searches for various topics online, and also gives you some regional analysis of where those searches are taking place. A reader clued me in. And here's a somewhat revealing discovery. Who's looking for "sex" the most? The countries with the most searches for that word is - surprise! - Pakistan, followed by Egypt, Iran, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Hmmm. It couldn't have anything to do with all that Muslim repression, could it? Arabic is the most popular language for "sex" searches. Islamism, like Christianism, doesn't conquer sex; it just fetishizes it and forces it underground. The most sex-obsessed Christian country? Poland. Congrats to the Vatican.

Labels: Middle East, religion

My Hero of the Week is Vatican astronomer (!) Guy Consolmagno who's openly dismissed the notion that the world was created in six days as "superstitious paganism":

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.
...
Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods. "Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That's why science and religion need to talk to each other," he said.

"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."

Brother Consolmagno went on to call the idea of papal infallibility a "PR disaster," instead saying the Pope is simply the Church's "boss, the final authority...It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear," he said.

Bravo, Brother, for injecting a little sanity into the proceedings (though I'm sure Pope Benedict has ordered his minions to take the astronomer out behind the woodshed by now). Just one thing, though -- the Vatican has a meteorite collection? What the hell?

Labels: Italy, religion

It's been a good week for 80's icons -- with their careers all-but-dead in the late 90's, it's been great to have Morrissey and Prince back in their prime. Like Morrissey, Prince had a hit comeback record two years ago and has now released '3121' -- a record that both reminds us of his brilliant albums two decades back and succeeds on its own terms as a terrific new disc.

While I freely admit that there's one too many dull slow-jam numbers here, the title track and "Lolita" are gorgeously strange and funky. "The Word" combines Christian preaching with a synthesizer beat, lots of sax and irresistible country guitar (now that's how you convert!) while "Black Sweat," like the best Prince songs, makes this white boy just wanna throw down right now!

And the closing track is my favourite: "Get On The Boat" is a plea for racial unity set to a salsa beat, bongo drums, killer piano riffs and then, with an announcement in the middle of the song -- the sweet, sweet saxophone of Maceo "Brand New Bag" Parker. "Every colour, every creed," Prince sings, "Get on the boat! We got room for a hundred more!" It's loose, a bit slight, but six minutes of infectious joy.

There's really nothing new on this album -- Prince may never surprise us the way he did two decades back -- but, like he said back then, "My name is Prince! And I am funky!"

Labels: religion

I apologize to Christians.

While I hope you all understand that I make a broad distinction between ordinary, church-going folk (whose faith in a personal God I don't share but do respect) and the wide-eyed zealots who work tirelessly to bring about a glorious, fiery, bloody cleansing of the earth in time for the Rapture. There's a thick line between those groups but it's getting thinner all the time, so you'll have to forgive me for spouting off about it. Lines in the sand and all.

I apologize because I didn't realize that I and all the other liberal, news media, gay activist, Hollywood and leftist groups were causing enough pain to warrant today's two-day conference in Washington DC, "The War On Christians And The Values Voter in 2006." One of the panels is entitled, "'Christian Persecution: Reports From the Frontlines'...which will hear from those who've experienced anti-Christian bias first-hand." You'll hear harrowing tales of regular American people beaten in the streets, fired from their jobs, separated from the children by the courts, drummed out of the military, forbidden to marry and commanded to live in secret.

Oh wait...I'm confusing them with this guy. He apologized, too.

Still, the point remains because Christian conservatives only control the Prime Minister's office and the American White House, Congress, Senate, Supreme Court and Fox News -- a tiny base under constant threat from "Will & Grace." A mere 80 percent of Americans are Christian but fortunately, according to a recent University of Minnesota study, they're holding firm:

Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry...[The lead researcher said,] “It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy -— and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious...Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”

See? Now I owe Ralph Reed an apology -- he's all about the common good -- so I hereby end my participation in this ugly War on Christians.

I will no longer argue that gay and lesbian people deserve the same legal, cultural and human rights as everyone else; I will no longer argue that religion and science classes should be kept separate for the sake of both; I will no longer argue that there are WAY too many politicians using the phrase, "As a Christian..." for some kind of 'get-out-of-jail-free' card; I will no longer argue that people are capable of being moral, caring citizens of the world with also being religious.

Oh wait a minute...that's not a 'War'...that's free speech, one of the defining values of Western Judeo-Christian civilization. Everybody wins! So I'll keep on yapping, the victims of secular cruelty can proudly hold their conference and we'll all play nicely in the sandbox until John Lennon gets his way or the United Church of Christ does. I'll be happy either way and hey, no bullets needed.

Labels: religion

Marvin Olasky, a close associate of President Bush credited with the concept of "compassionate conservatism," has shown little for former right-wing golden boy Ralph Reed after a string of indictments. According to The Nation's Jack Newfield:

When Ralph Reed was the boyish director of the Christian Coalition, he made opposition to gambling a major plank in his "family values" agenda, calling gambling "a cancer on the American body politic" that was "stealing food from the mouths of children." But now, a broad federal investigation into lobbying abuses connected to gambling on Indian reservations has unearthed evidence that Reed has been surreptitiously working for an Indian tribe with a large casino it sought to protect--and that Reed was paid with funds laundered through two firms to try to keep his lucrative involvement secret.

Olasky is editor in chief of World magazine, dedicated "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Reed, says Olasky, "has damaged Christian political work by confirming for some the stereotype that evangelicals are easily manipulated and that evangelical leaders use moral issues to line their own pockets."

Gosh, Marvin, you don't say! Since Ralph Reed's been at this for over a decade, you're a little late for the party but better late than never, right? See, here's what's always irked me about those on the other side of the gay rights debate -- some (a very few, I find) are thoughtful opponents like Steve Burton, some are wing-nut bigots like James "Spongebob Queerpants" Dobson and some, like Reed, are so obviously just opportunistic political weasels looking to use religion to distract everybody while he robs the henhouse. His main business client was ENRON, for pity's sake! Why, WHY can't people make these distinctions? After all, it's in the Book [Acts 9:18, King James Version]:

"And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose..."

Labels: George W Bush, religion

Holy shit! No, really...

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at March 28, 2006

 

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Exactly one year ago, near-insane from the results of the 2004 American election, I wrote this:

I know, in the long run, that things are getting better, that reason and fairness will prevail, and that these people will grow up and stop lashing out in fear all the time. But how do we deal with the short term? How do we deal with four more years?

Quite well, as it turns out. Less than a year into his second term, George W. Bush is now what's called a "lame duck" President, mired in ethics scandals, massive deficits and his botched war in Iraq. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll says that,

George W. Bush's approval ratings for handling his job, Iraq, terrorism and the economy are all at career-lows. Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of his work in office overall, a level of discontent unseen since recession chased his father from office.

Finally, people are rejecting this pathetic excuse for a leader and his terrifying pack of oil-company cronies. And it only took the deaths of 3000 people to do it (nearly a thousand Louisiana citizens and over 2000 soldiers sent to Iraq, but who's counting?).

We're even starting to learn how we got to this sad point to begin with. For instance, the Senate is currently investigating a sleazier-than-usual pair of Republican fundraisers who swindled $66 million from Native American reservation casinos by enlisting Christian voters:

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." The brilliance of this strategy was twofold: Not only would most voters not know about an initiative to protect Coushatta gambling revenues, but religious "wackos" could be tricked into supporting gambling at the Coushatta casino even as they thought they were opposing it.

This is the oldest, most successful, most disgusting game in politics -- if you talk about Jesus loudly and often, you can get away with just about anything. The combination of God and Money is so irresistable to most people that they'll line up to support your swindle, your Presidental candidate or even your war.

But only for a little while. As a far, far better President once said, "You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time."

Labels: George W Bush, religion

Eugene Mirman is a stand-up comic in New York, probably the last guy a right-wing Christian telemarketing company should be cold-calling. Like thousands of Americans, he received a series of telephone calls urging him to switch to a "Christian-based telephone carrier" out of Oklahoma but, unlike thousands of Americans, he taped the calls and posted them on his website. There's three hilariously creepy exchanges that typically start like this:

Operator: Did you press 1 to oppose same sex marriages?

Mr. Mirman: Oh, I pressed it, yes.

Operator: Okay, that's great to hear. And are you against same sex marriages?

Mr. Mirman: Well, I want to destroy it, yes.

Operator: Okay. That's great to hear... -

Mr. Mirman: Like the fist of God we will smash them!

Operator: Exactly.

Labels: religion

Is this what they call "situation comedy"? It's certainly a crank phone call (ewww)...

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at June 03, 2005

 

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No, not more Pope-bashing but, on a lighter-yet-vaguely-related note, my aforementioned plug for the new TV version of "Battlestar Galactica" (stay with me here). Like many children-of-the-70's, I eagerly tuned in to the weekly "Star Wars" rip-off from Glen A. Larson, creator of 'classics' like "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Knight Rider." I adored the show's fancy special effects yet found my TV affections constantly reverting to the bargain-basement rubber monsters of "Doctor Who." What had gone wrong?

A night fifteen years later answered the question. Mildly drunk and wildly nostalgic, a group of us in university rented a batch of 70's videos, including "Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack," a two-parter stitched together and featuring Lloyd Bridges as a rogue spaceship captain. It was, we realized, absolutely and irreedemedly stupid. What was shiny chrome to children was tin to adults. One brutal-yet-entirely-accurate summation of Larson's career refers to the show's "idiotic" plots and argues that:

Today, there exists no better indicator of the rampant stupidity, vacuity, and incompetence in contemporary Hollywood than the news that there are now competing factions fighting for the rights to relaunch Battlestar Galactica. The mind boggles; it’s like fighting for the rights to make a sequel to Howard the Duck.

That relaunch eventually arrived and I ignored it. One bitten and all. But after an initial miniseries, more episodes were commissioned and the loudly-enthusiastic praise from critics and viewers alike finally convinced me to rent the DVD. The new BG is...well...bloody fantastic. It's not only the best sci-fi series in years but it's among the best dramas.

For one thing, the show features a provocatively-creepy notion for an American television show: the bad guys -- unrelenting, genocidal robot "Cylons" -- believe in God. 'Our' God. One of them explains that, while humans still remain "one step away from beating each other with clubs," the Cylons have evolved into perfect synthetic duplicates of their human creators and God has now chosen to give them the souls mankind have abandoned. They will extermine humanity because God has decreed it.

This theologically-disturbing notion comes from writer/producer Ron Moore, a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" veteran responsible for some of that show's best episodes and the co-creation of its superior follow-up, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." "Battlestar Galactica" takes many of DS9's cultural and political themes and digs in deeper. Moore made a thoughtful blog posting this past weekend that does a bang-up job in explaining the show's appeal:

I do see the show as an opportunity to raise questions in the minds of the audience and ask them to think, which is something of a rariety in these days when politics seems to be about stoking emotionalism and finding simple-minded slogans to stand-in for actual answers to complex problems. ("Culture of Life!" "Right to Die!" "Ban Smoking!" "The Ownership Society!")

Galactica is both mirror and prism through which to view our world. It attempts to mirror the complexities of our lives and our society in turbulent times, while at the same time reflecting and bending that view in order to allow us to extrapolate on notions present in contemporary society but which have not yet come to pass, i.e. a true artificial intelligence becoming self-aware and the existential questions it raises. Our goal is to examine contemporary culture and society, to challenge (and sometimes provoke) our audience, but not to provide easy answers to complex problems.

This is what science fiction was meant to do; what television ought to do. BG asks all the big questions of "The West Wing" but does it with sex appeal and spaceships. What's not to love?

Labels: religion, TV

Thanks to your recommendation, we watched the mini-series disc last weekend. Loved it! Yet another worthy recommendation from SD. Unfortunately, now I wish I knew someone who gets the Sci-Fi Channel, to tape the new episodes for me. Alas, we're stranded.

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at April 25, 2005

 

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The 365Gay.com Newscenter (boy, I love that) reports that a school board member in Virginia went 'rogue' this week and issued his own letter to Fairfax high school principals urging them to give students "a choice" on homosexuality, a "very destructive lifestyle" (Having been indoctrinated entirely -- yet unsuccessfully -- in heterosexuality, I now wish I'd gone to school in big gay Fairfax, Virginia!)

Stephen Hunt wrote that "Children are being taught that homosexuality is normal and natural. It is neither. To state that it is normal or natural is to promote the myth that accompanies the homosexual activist rhetoric." Homosexuality normal? No, not really. Natural? 'Fraid so.

Hunt's letter then takes an odd turn, insisting against intolerance. "If a person does choose a gay lifestyle, we should respect their freedom, their safety and their choice," he wrote. By repeatedly insisting that their lives are abnormal, unnatural and destructive? R-E-S-P-E-C-T, sock it to me!

Happily, the school board was quick to distance themselves from Hunt. Schools Superintendent Jack Dale said, "We want our schools to be seen as welcoming places for all individuals." Thank you, Mr. Dale, though I'm afraid my 'White Knight' award has to go to Kelly Schlageter who, the article says, "worries that Hunt's views may send a message to students that it is wrong to be gay." Gee, Kelly, you think? Those students may not be smart enough to pick up on Hunt's delicate subtlety.

Oh, but enough fun -- here's the real reason I've spent my time on yet another outburst of prejudiced drivel: Hunt proposes bringing guest-speakers into the classroom to provide "balance" against all that pro-homosexuality propaganda they apparently spend their days hearing. He suggests conservative groups (who've had such luck in the grade schools, turning the kids against cartoon characters) and, better yet, ex-gay people.

I met an ex-gay person a few years ago at an Anglican Church conference (sort of a 'what to do with the homosexuals' affair). Catherine (an alias) was a very thin, six-foot tall, almost bird-like woman with a lazy eye. She discussed her gawky, painful adolescence, leading to a series of brief, dismal affairs with men. Eventually, she "fell into" lesbianism and, sadly, an abusive relationship with an angry woman. Catherine seemed very proud of mustering up the self-esteem and courage necessary to leave this woman and, apparently, the entire gender.

We all listened to her story with compassion but I noticed the crowd and I nodding intently during different bits. Catherine's teenage years and string of failed relationships had me nodding and thinking, 'Yes, self-hatred is awful' while the abuse portion seemed to have the crowd agreeing, 'Yes, lesbianism is awful.'

After Catherine's speech, people came up to talk to her directly. I shook her hand and said, "It was very brave of you to talk about all that." She was completely unable to make eye contact with me and my heart cracked for this poor, damaged woman, abused by men and women alike. I didn't have the heart to start grilling her with "homosexual activist rhetoric". I've heard the (very) occasional argument against homosexuality that's made me think, 'Well, they do have a point there,' but Catherine's tremulous voice praising her nick-of-time conversion was not one of them.

That's just one woman's story, of course -- there's actually a Christian 'ex-gay movement' whose rhetoric is far more confused than anything the gay or anti-gay activists can muster. Exodus International is the largest and most well-known and I'll let them speak for themselves:

Exodus International is a distinctly religious organization offering services and referrals to people who are in conflict with their sexual feelings and Christian beliefs. However, detractors often say that the message of Exodus is compromised due to the failure of the co-founders of the organization to remain heterosexual. In a recent Cleveland Plain Dealer article, also on the subject of sexual orientation change, Mr. Besen claimed that Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper were the co-founders of Exodus International. He noted again that the men became gay partners.

The second claim is true. As documented in the 1992 film "One Nation Under God," the two men did indeed leave their families in 1979 and engaged in a commitment ceremony in 1982. However, the first claim is false. Mr. Cooper and Mr. Bussee were not the co-founders of Exodus International.
...
The truth is that some people who were ex-gay ministry leaders or participants have reverted to a gay or lesbian identity. Ex-ex-gays exist. However, the majority of people who began with Exodus have not returned to a gay identity. Speaking of Exodus, Mr. Besen and those detractors who say all ex-gay leaders are “extraordinary failures” are simply ignoring the whole truth.

Clear as mud. I like the dodge about members not reverting to a 'gay identity' as opposed to 'behaviour'. A sarcastic person might notice that married heterosexual men are never seen in gay bathhouses -- no, no, never!

But, in all fairness, they're not entirely wrong. Exodus and the ex-gay movement fascinate me because, in the big scheme of things, they're the most correct -- Kinsey and his researchers found decades ago that a great many heterosexual men had at least one instance of what they used to call 'messing around' with other boys and most gay men have had sex with a woman at least once. Exclusive heterosexuality was and always will be the most common, but sexual fluidity is far more prevalent than straights or gays care to discuss. Too bad Exodus spoils their message with all that 'saved' talk. They 'rescue' homosexuals as if such a thing were necessary, desirable or perhaps possible. They may be rushing to the flimsy lifeboats but the ship I'm travelling on is in no danger of sinking.

Labels: religion

I had the perverse thought of waiting until Saturday to write again, just so it would be exactly one month since my last posting. My blog has become A Cry For Help.

Fans of my ramblings -- both of you -- were surprised by my silence these last few weeks. How could a mouth this big be so silent? How could I, of all people, just shut the hell up? I could scarcely believe it myself but still there was nothing.

In short, it just all got too big. Huge. George Bush's unbelievable re-election. The depressingly-hysterical gay marriage debate. The pathetic near-bankruptcy of Toronto, my home. America's renewed love affair with the vague, creepily-euphamistic "moral values." The tsunami horror. And brave soldiers dying, dying, dying in this never-ending, mismanaged, unnecessary, goddamned war in Iraq. I felt overwhelmed.

I ranted, I pondered, I donated money but, oddly, I couldn't write. I just couldn't see any point to broadcasting my marginal opinions in the face of all this. And the weirdest part is that this wasn't part of another depressive episode -- while the Toronto weather in January has been a brutal yo-yo swing from 'damn-cold' to 'fuckin-cold', I've been, well, happy.

I joined a conversation with two work colleagues the other day about the tenure of Mel Lastman as Mayor of Toronto -- the "wilderness years," we agreed -- and I told them my concerns for David Miller, trying to clean up in the aftermath of that incompetent and corrupt reign of error. "But how much can we really worry about this stuff?" my friend asked, "You and I have our own problems to deal with."

But maybe that is the problem -- right now, I don't. My own life is, knock on wood, remarkably content at the moment. I love the company I'm working for and, for once in my life, it loves me back. I've been on a couple of dates -- nothing too heart-pounding, true, but still welcome. I've been spending time with friends and reading a lot. It's all very low-key but very, very soothing.

But these causes I care about, the huge problems I fear, are still rolling forward and I, personally, am just not doing anything to help. I feel stagnant and useless. It's not that I have some kind of hero complex or anything -- the problems in this world will only be solved by group action, not by me, but how does going to work everyday and yammering on about it all on a blog change anything? This has been my mood since Christmas.

Ah, but here's the turning point, where I shake off the maudlin self-pity that has crept in yet again. I forgot about inspiration. I forgot that there are people I admire who are doing what I'm not -- or just trying -- and being a conduit for their ideas is always the next best thing to having ideas of my own. If I can't be a faucet, I'll be a bucket and either way the water will get there (ladies and gentlemen, please welcome that metaphor, straight from my ass!)

So, while I mull over what the bishop's next move is, here are the people who've given me the kick in the backside I needed this month:

-- Joel Achenbach, whose new "Achenblog" on the Washington Post site (you may have to register to read it) is as smart and witty as I want mine to be. Plus, he shares my pain:

Not sure I love blogging. Have had numerous moments of blogger neurosis...Also there is my concern, which first surfaced yesterday, that this blog isn’t really about anything, is scatterbrained, and like many blogs is just an exercise in unrestrained egomania. That bothers me. My motto is: Egomania In Moderation.

-- Darrell Reimer, who makes me jealous by running TWO blogs: the thoughtful and assured "Whiskey Prajer" reflections and the advice-for-fathers column "Stay Home, Daddy-O" which makes me jealous by being about something! When he hadn't read anything from me in three weeks, he called me long-distance to see if anything was wrong. That's the mark of a fine man and a good friend, so go read him and leave me to my jealousy!

-- Nat Hentoff, the fine jazz writer and free-speech advocate, caught me right when I was questioning the point of my lone-Canadian anti-Bush watch:

Whenever I speak at a school, or at any gathering, I bring the late Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas into the conversation. As a defender of constitutional liberty, he was the direct opposite of Alberto Gonzales. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Douglas once wrote to a group of young lawyers, are not self-executing. He warned: "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air—-however slight-—lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."

Hentoff has said that "the best way to lose your freedom is to stop paying attention to those trying to take it away from you." Fair enough, Nat -- I'm on board.

-- Mary Walsh, who carried the same theme forward but, of course, funnier and with that great Newfoundland accent. On Rick Mercer's Jan 17 "Monday Report", she admitted that she misses her stint on "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" mainly for "the outlet." Now, Mary wailed, she can only rant at friends and "no one will invite me to a dinner party anymore!" (Oh Mary, I'm so there with you!) Mercer -- the imp -- then asked, "So Mary, what do you think of George Bush?" and she hollered, "Oh, he is driving me MAD...and that numbnuts Rumsfeld -- anyone else would've lost his job by now!"
Isn't she perfect? I want Mary Walsh to adopt me!

-- and finally, Dr. James Dobson, director of (sigh) Focus on the Family, who issued a "gay alert" against the evil of Spongebob Squarepants. How I wish I were kidding.

It all started when the We Are Family Foundation -- created after the Sept. 11 attacks to teach children about multiculturalism -- announced an unprecedented collaboration between various children's TV creators -- a video sent to elementary schools featuring dozens of currently-popular cartoon characters promoting the idea of tolerating differences and challenging bullies.

On that note, here comes the family-focused Dobson, who insisted that the use of the disco chestnut "We Are Family" made this an "insidious pro-homosexual video" (since, as Gore Vidal might say, all gays love disco music, except the ones who don't). Also, there's the inclusion of the ever-cheerful Spongebob Squarepants, who was once spotted holding the hand of his sidekick Patrick Starfish and subsequently outed by Dr. Dobson.

The media has had a field day with the story this week -- not since Dan Quayle criticized the fictional pregnancy of Murphy Brown has there been such a ridiculous cultural critique. Unable to stand the teasing, the good doctor's people issued a fussy disclaimer on the FOTF website:

From the outset, let's be clear that this issue is not about objections to any specific cartoon characters. Instead, Dr. Dobson is concerned that these popular animated personalities are being exploited by an organization that's determined to promote the acceptance of homosexuality among our nation's youth.

Oh, I see, he's not obsessed with gays, he's "concerned that these popular animated personalities are being exploited" (by such a "determined" group -- grrr!). Who cries for Clifford, the Big Red Dog? Who mourns Dora the Explorer? Sure, I could go on all day making fun of this loon but it's only because I'm so angry at him. This is not about children being exposed to depictions of homosexuality (which I forbid), or even discussing the lives of homosexuals (which I advocate) -- for Dobson, it's about not tolerating the mere existance of homosexuals. This sickens me (and hopefully Christians who still remember Matthew 22:36-40).

I try to understand the hysteria. It's really a problem of vocabulary. When homosexuals hear the word 'tolerance', they think, "freedom from being beaten and hated by bigots" and when Dr. Dobson and his ilk hear the word 'tolerance', they think "liberals anally raping your children." And how do we bridge that gap?

Here's an idea: we leave it up to the fine folks at the United Church of Christ, who weighed in on this sadly-topical issue by cleverly...well...exploiting a popular animated personality. In the funniest set of photos I've seen all week, the UCC has invited Spongebob Squarepants into their church:

Jesus wouldn't turn away SpongeBob Squarepants, and neither does the United Church of Christ. Rev. John H. Thomas, general minister and president of the UCC, gave warm welcome to SpongeBob yesterday -- as well to Barney, Big Bird, Clifford, the long-banished Tinky-Winky, and anyone else who had "experienced the Christian message as a harsh word of judgment rather than Jesus' offering of grace."

Ladies and gentlemen, THAT'S how it's done: fighting crazed stupidity with beautiful silliness. I was already proud of the United Church for their clever-but-banned 'bouncer' TV ad campaign and their bemused reaction to Dobson's hatemongering is inspired.

And it reminds me why I do this. When I look around and see a world so grim, so irrational, so (yes) intolerant, I feel swamped and helpless and impotent. But then I remember that this same world is filled with funny, sensible, decent people trying to make it sane, fair and fun. That's a good fight and, while I strive for a more concrete role in it, this tiny, meaningless blog will continue to champion the reasonable and mock the hateful.

Now tell me what you think...

Labels: Canada, George W Bush, religion, Trawna

Toronto is currently losing its collective mind over the bizarre spike in high school stabbings -- three this month. What's especially sad is that, after Columbine, we're just glad they stuck to knives.

This is why I get a rueful laugh over a school in Texas that took action against their own troublesome influence: an 18-year-old honor student at Trinity Christian Academy was a varsity athlete, won a number of citizenship awards, participated in the school theater, was a yearbook editor, and helped younger students with Bible study.

Oh yeah, and he started a website for closeted gay teens to talk with one another, leading to his expulsion for "immoral behavior and supporting an immoral cause."

The student said:
The site to me meant a great deal, as it had probably saved my life; it gave me people who were going through the same thing and we could talk. I could finally come out of my shell. So I created a free service that would give teens an outlet; stray away from drugs, suicide, alcoholism, etc.

The school's policy says:
As a community of Christian families we also believe the Bible provides insight to help us discern God's desire for our conduct. Therefore we demand high biblical standards of behavior from our students both academically and socially. Our families are asked to embrace these standards of conduct by signing a covenant with the school when students are admitted. Within this framework of biblical standards and academic rigor, an atmosphere of enhanced learning, character development, and love are allowed to flourish.

And there's just no room for compromise, is there?

Labels: religion, Trawna

I will allow Christmas.

I'm not exactly fond of it -- the insane commercializm, the oppressive jingles, the forced goodwill -- but I know what it means (thanks, Charlie Brown!) and I know what it does for families. Yes, I've decided, Christmas can stay.

I feel the need to announce this because this holiday season has a problem with "the holiday season." Recent attempts at including Chanukah, Kwanzaa and other year-end religious holidays under the red-and-green umbrella have been met with shrieking charges of a secular progressive assault on Christmas (like this letter to Slate entitled "Secular Progressive Assault on Christmas").

Even right-wing windbag Bill O'Reilly took a break from sexually-harrassing interns to stop the insanity. In responding to a Jewish man who confessed that he felt a tad sick of the Christian holiday, O'Reilly told him to "go to Israel then" if he had a problem with it. Oddly, some took exception to this and O'Reilly got defensive:

"You criticize anybody, you challenge anybody, then you are a bigot. And that's the -- that's why nobody does it. That's why nobody sticks up for Christmas except me. Did Peter Jennings stick up for Christmas last night? I don't believe he did. How about Brian Williams, did he? Did Rather stick up for Christmas? How about Jim Lehrer -- did he? Did Larry King -- hello, I love Christmas -- did he? No."

You've inspired me, Bill. Your brave and lonely stance has emboldened me to betray my filthy gay athetist cultleaders and join you in defending poor, endangered Christmas! I mean, if Larry "Hello, I Love Christmas" King won't do it then it's up to us to urge everyone to get out there and shop! Shop! Shop for your lives!

Labels: religion

A solid entry from Andrew Sullivan's blog today, responding to an e-mail saying that homosexual people are actually treated well in the US South: "I understand this a big deal for you, being gay, but you've already won and you should realize this."

Andrew disagrees, noting that this is a common conservative opinion:

Essentially, the position of the Republican right is..."We are not homophobes; we are happy to live alongside gay people, as long as they recognize that they can never have the same civil rights as we do. Accept your own inferiority, and we will accept you." That's why this is so hard to compromise on. Because it cuts to the core of a human being's self-worth. On this, we cannot compromise. The simple truth is that there isn't a single civil right I would deny to an evangelical Christian. I've defended their freedom of religion, of association, of disassociation, and believe they should be treated with respect. I wouldn't dream of drumming them out of the military, firing them for their faith, tearing up their relationships, or taking their children away from them. The favor, alas, is not returned.

And, yeah, that's about it, really.

Labels: religion

Culture warrior Pat Buchanan, as helpful as ever:

"To devout Muslims, what Europe offers is godless materialism and hedonism, a life devoid of meaning and purpose, save pleasure and self-indulgence. They prefer to do Allah's bidding in this world to ensure they share his paradise in the next. Undeniably, Islam is rising. And, like all rising faiths, it is intolerant."

James Cramer of TheStreet.com reading my mind on Wal-Mart:

"The stores are dowdy. The aisles are ugly. There's nothing exciting or different or even colorful at Wal-Mart. It feels almost Soviet in its selection and presentation."

Mathew Staver, attorney for a group of state lawmakers and Catholics suing the Massachusetts Supreme Court for allowing gay marriage:

"[The Constitution should] protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power...[and protect their right] to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court."

Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, in response:

"Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury."

Labels: homo-a-go-go, Middle East, Orwell says hi, politics, religion

The just-passed gay marriage ban in Utah has had the usual unintended consequences for heterosexual people. A man has been charged with ignoring a restraining order issued by his former girlfriend and his attorney is arguing that the new ban's "prohibition of legal recognition of any domestic union that is substantially equivalent to a marriage" makes enforcing the restraining order unconstitutional.

These sorts of things have happened before -- straight people arrested under vaguely-written sodomy laws and what not. If conservatives keep throwing around the 'war' label, I guess these people could be considered 'collateral damage.' I keep insisting that until we decide on some fair standard of marriage for all people, these sort of legal wrangles will continue, with a lot of pain for those involved.

Meanwhile, Thomas Caramagno, Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, has weighed in with his necessary book, "Irreconcilable Differences? Intellectual Stalemate in the Gay Rights Debate." Caramagno rightly asks:

What happened to the "debate" in "the gay rights debate"? Moral condemnations and demonizing stereotypes do not advance useful dialog. The disputants have become perfect enemies, divided on every issue with such intensity that consensus--or even detente--seems impossible...No single profile for homosexuals exists that can encompass the diverse individuals who comprise the lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered / transsexual (LGBT) population, just as there is no monolithic model for heterosexuals who oppose legal protections for GLBTs. The gay rights debate is stalemated because each side oversimplifies and pathologizes the other's perspective.

And because the other guys are a bunch of redneck bigots, of course!

Labels: America, homo-a-go-go, Orwell says hi, politics, religion

I went to visit my family in Hamilton this weekend and my dad and I watched HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" (love that satellite dish!) My dad likes Maher because, well, he's a bit of an asshole but one of the few TV pundits who values common sense over left-wing-right-wing dogma. He's mean, he's funny, he's usually right.

As a long-time critic of Bush's obvious faults, Maher was clearly bewildered by the results of the election, notably the exit polls citing moral values as the chief issue among Bush voters. "The election is over," Maher announced, "and all I can say is, 'Praise Jesus!'...Tuesday, George Bush was elected president of the United States. You know what they say? The first time is always the sweetest."

In conversation with his guests, he was clearly as irritated as I was by the assertion that atheists or non-Christians have no morals or values:

Am I not entitled to the opinion that science should have precedence over faith? That rationality should have precedence over belief in Jesus? That the Constitution is more important than the Bible, at least as far as running a government goes?...When we talk about values, I think of rationality in solving problems. That's something I value. Fairness, kindness, generosity, tolerance. That's different.

Let's be honest - this electorate has switched because that Christian right has taken over the Republican Party. They started it in the '80s with Reagan and Pat Robertson. And like a parasite on a host, they now own it...But when we have an election in the middle of a war and an existential fight about terrorism, and we’re fighting about boys kissing, I’m sorry, there is a big problem in this country.

Yes, Bill Maher became my hero last weekend and wrapped up his show and season with this:

So, Democrats - Democrats and liberals - stop saying you're going to move because Bush won. Real liberals should be pledging to stay because Bush won. Trust me, you can't get away from Bush by moving to France. Because that's where we're invading next.

Labels: family, George W Bush, religion, tributes, TV

In the aftermath of last Tuesday, I've been cheered by the mighty James Wolcott, whose columns in Vanity Fair are always impressive (like the one in the mid-nineties warning that the merging of news and entertainment would lead to an abundance of stupid, toxic 'reality' television -- too good a call, I'd say). Wolcott's blog bemoans Bush's victory for helping out Osama bin Laden:

This was the outcome he wanted, a gift from us to him: an unapologetic Christian Crusader in the White House whose reelection gives lie to the notion that Abu Ghraib was an aberration and that the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians weigh upon America's conscience. This morning America could not look more like a grinning aggressor to the Arab world, an aggressor with fresh marching orders.

But there's bitter clarity to knowing the worst. My wife has forbade me from going into the same depressive funk after this election that I did 9/11--"I couldn't take another 9 months of that again"--and I'm not depressed, being filled with far too much healthy loathing for millions of my fellow Americans to let myself droop.

The phrase "healthy loathing" is still making me laugh. Thanks, James.

Labels: religion

Now here's an interesting portent for the future -- while John Kerry got the most numbers from youth, gay and black voters, it was the massive turn-out from evangelical Christians who pushed George Bush into the White House. Turns out, however, that many did so while holding their nose, judging from this mass e-mail from conservative pastor Bill Keller's LivePrayer.com, sent out on election day:

The choice for President has ultimately boiled down to a matter of restraining God's wrath. Because of the void in spiritual leadership in this nation, God allowed President Bush to come into office in 2000 with the opportunity to exercise bold leadership in several pressing spiritual issues that will one day soon bring God's wrath down on this nation. Instead of seizing the opportunity God presented him to be a Joshua or a Moses, President Bush chose to simply be another politician who happened to be a Christian.

In a recent interview with ABC's "Good Morning America's," Charlie Gibson, President Bush stated he supported civil unions, that the allah of Islam is the same as the God of the Bible, and that Christians, non-Christians, and Muslims will all get to Heaven, we just have different routes of getting there. It was so sad to hear the President support civil unions which is just another name for gay marriage. President Bush also needs to be taught that the Allah of Islam is NOT the God of the Bible. Lastly, while it is politically correct to say all people will go to Heaven, it is a lie from the pits of hell since the Bible CLEARLY teaches there is only ONE WAY, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ.

But does faith in Jesus Christ automatically equal faith in George Bush? Maybe not.

Labels: George W Bush, religion

MARY, QUITE CONTRARY

This gay marriage thing gets weirder all the time. Christian right-wingers in the U.S. are leaping to the defense of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary.

In Wednesday night's debate, John Kerry referred to her during an exchange on the marriage issue, noting the contradiction in her father supporting legislation to deny his daughter rights. Kerry did not "out" Mary Cheney -- she's been out for years -- but conservatives say Kerry is being homophobic by using Mary's sexuality as an election issue (Charles Taylor at Salon rightly asks why it's an 'issue' at all).

Conservatives defending Mary Cheney's right to privacy while stripping away all others -- Bizarro World keeps on spinning.

Labels: religion

I'M NO BOOKER T.

After my latest George W. Bush rant yesterday, I would of course stumble upon this quote from the great Booker T. Washington:

"I will not permit any man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

Oh, alright, I'll ease up. Forgiveness is an excellent thing to aim for, after all. But I'm not a Christian -- my forgiveness is not unconditional. Get that moron out of the White House, stop him from doing any further damage and then and only then will I be able to relax and admit that Bush truly was doing what he thought was right.

It's the final verdict for incompetents throughout history: "Well, he meant well..."

Labels: George W Bush, religion

JUST THE FACTS, RICK

On the opinion pages this morning, "Slate asked a variety of prominent American novelists, ranging from Edwidge Danticat to John Updike, for a frank response to the following question: Which presidential candidate are you voting for, and why?"

Richard Dooling makes a good point that writers should be "political agnostics" but totally lost me with this comment:

The left-wing political road rage directed at George W. Bush for being dumb and lying about the war reminds me of nothing so much as the right-wing obsessive invective directed at Bill Clinton for being smart and lying about sex.

This is an unbelievable comparison. Bill Clinton had many flaws but none of them led to the catastrophic effects of Bush's idiocy. I don't understand anyone who could equate lying about personal sexual behaviour with lying about a rationale for a conflict that has killed thousands of people.

I do recognize Dooling's "rage" idea though -- it's an issue I've been wrestling with for some time. I don't like admitting it but I hate George W. Bush. More than any politician I can think of, I absolutely hate this guy. Even more than Reagan, who I could admire from time to time while still finding his policies grotesque. Canada's flirted with electing right-wing demogogues like Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day yet I never looked at them with the same contempt I feel for this...imposter.

I still maintain, however, that all of this stems not from irrational, knee-jerk politicking but from Bush's own history. I watched this nepotism-winner stumble his way through that campaign against Al Gore and was stunned by how incapable he seemed. Then came the real shocks: first, the Florida election debacle; then, the way the Supreme Court cut off a recount and handed Bush the presidency. He was the first president to have protesters at his inauguration and Rick Moody, author of "The Ice Storm," asserts in Slate's interview that, over the last four years:

it became self-evident, I think, that the Bush presidency is the most corrupt in modern history. Under the cynical disguise of evangelical Christian moralizing (and don't even get me started on Bush's moronic theology), Bush conducted (and continues to conduct) a fire sale, in which he auctioned off the entire nation to the highest corporate bidder, piece by piece. Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes he didn't even bother to take bids. And this is not to mention a war based on outright mendacity, in which tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed.

Too much rhetoric? Maybe, so here's a more pragmatic take from Chang-Rae Lee:

I would be voting for Kerry as a protest vote against the Iraq war alone, but even without that horrid mess, Bush and his handlers are heading us in the wrong directions in energy policy, the environment, civil liberties, tax issues, health care, education, judicial appointments—-the list is endless.

Even if you agree, as a few of the writers interviewed do, that Bush is the stronger war-time leader and that the war in Iraq was necessary, this Republican administration's handling of the war has been abysmal and their record on nearly every domestic issue has been awful bordering on terrifying. And I say this as a Canadian, a safe distance from the fire but close enough to feel the heat. Kerry will not be the perfect leader -- he's yet to truly inspire -- but at least he'll be practical and sane. And that's just the cold, hard truth.

Labels: Canada, George W Bush, religion, Stephen Harper

LET'S ANSWER TOM

My co-worker Tom interrupted yet another "Passion of the Christ" discussion at the store yesterday with an exasperated, "Why does everybody care so much about this Jesus movie?" He's right in that the movie geeks within and without Sunrise records do tend to go on about this film (just like Stephen King, by the way, who's written an interesting take on it in this week's Entertainment Weekly). Before I go any further, I must say that the fine folks at Killing the Buddha have written what I believe is the definite account of the whole debate.

But as for my own contribution, I suggested to Tom that the real reason everyone is so, well, impassioned over this movie is because it functions as a lightning rod for our charged cultural atmosphere, if you will, and all that electricity comes from defensiveness. People are literally afraid of what this movie may do. There's quite simply a large but generally (thankfully) quiet group of Christians who believe that the Jewish people are solely responsible for the killing of Christ. (Why are Italians always let off the hook? The Romans did all the dirty work...) Mel Gibson is rumoured to be one of those believers and he has poured a lot of money into making a movie that's got Jews very, very nervous.

Meanwhile, many Christians in the southern U.S. are often found going on about their own oppression at the hands of a secular society and "the liberal media". They're flocking to the big Jesus movie because they're thrilled to see their faith finally represented in the multiplexes (and this makes a certain sense to me as a gay man -- I've paid good money to see some dreadful movies in my time simply because they had a lone gay character in them).

So you've got nervous Jews and nervous Christians watching the box-office totals with nervousness. Personally, I thought the movie tried for glory and left out the 'L' but I'm pleased to see it make money, because a) the film's smarter and better for you than, say, "Bad Boys II" and b) we would never have heard the end of the blaming if the thing had flopped.

Look at it this way: "Passion of the Christ" is making a fortune and ranks at 145 on the list of highest-grossing movies, three spaces below "American Pie 2." Meanwhile, "Schindler's List" ranks much higher at 105 on that list, while coming in at number 3 on the list of Greatest Jewish movies (latkes on me, everybody!).

The stately "Kundun" is sadly nowhere on that top-grossing list but the humanism-spouting mutants of "X2" come in at (wow) number 59 so, as neither a Christian or a Jew, I'll just watch the fuss over "The Passion of the Christ" with no nervousness at all.

Labels: religion

JUDGMENT DAY

I saw a movie on television the other night called The Rapture, one I'd heard about for some time but had never seen at the video store. Mimi Rogers plays a bored woman looking for meaning in her life, starting with group sex and leading to Christian fundamentalism. Such a wild pendulum swing is made totally plausible by Rogers' terrific performance and by the way the film deals matter-of-factly with issues of faith, identity and sexuality. I was waiting for it to either bolster my own opinions or challenge them, but it did neither -- the plot going in directions I had to really work with. It's an amazing movie that made me think about my own experiences and direction, the way a great film often can.

What struck me immediately is how it pinpointed my fear of judgment. The idea of a fundamentalist Judgment Day is horrifying to me (and no doubt to all the people it keeps in line, as well). I can't believe in a god who so coldly picks his favourites and punishes his disappointments, but doesn't nature do that all the time? Life is routinely generous with some, cruel to others, and a Judgment Day scenario is just one way, as Jung put it, "to light a candle of meaning in the darkness of mere being." The eerie question "The Rapture" poses is, 'What if they're right?'

I don't know what I'd do, frankly, but I do know that judgment -- or, more accurately, avoiding judgment -- is what drives me. I judge the people around me about half as harshly as I judge myself, and that's about half as much as I used to, years ago. Why has all this bank-loan-credit-rating business been so painful to me? Because of the frustration that my financial struggles, my attempts to make things right from mistakes made over a decade ago, can be so quickly and easily judged and dismissed by people unknown. Why am I not pouring my energies into finding a better job instead of grinding away in the two that I have? Because of that fear I get in job interviews when the people behind the desk skim over my resume and say, "Wow, you've done a little of everything, haven't you?" and I know they don't mean it as a compliment. Why am I not spending what little free time I have working on a novel or something of value? Because of the doubt that it would mean anything to someone, that it would be glanced at and tossed to one side, unread.

This fear of judgment is paralyzing yet so obviously ridiculous because, while you the reader may be saying, "Jesus man, just shut up and do it anyway!", it's the voice in my own head that says it loudest of all. It's a strange kind of safety -- no one can judge me because I'm too busy doing it myself.

Labels: religion

WITH ARMS CLOSED SHUT

Since there apparently weren't enough music genres, someone had to coin the label "nu-metal" to describe the ascension of crap rock these past few years (and the badly-spelled name makes me think of the Who: "Meet the nu-metal; same as the old metal."). I can't tell these bands apart -- they all feature the usual overblown production, wall-of-sound guitar and a kind of throaty, self-important singing that sounds like Celine Dion with testicles. Try singing "My Heart Will Go On" in a growly, lower pitch and you too could be fronting Nickelback any time now.

I reserve particular judgment for Creed, who combine a Pearl Jam impression with lyrics that, depending on your own spiritual interests, are either deep, heartfelt howls from the soul or turgid, pretentious Christian wanking. But don't take my word for it -- here's an example:

Only in America
We're slaves to be free
Only in America we kill the unborn
To make ends meet
Only in America
Sexuality is democracy
Only in America we stamp our god
"In God We Trust"

What is right or wrong
I don't know who to believe in
My soul sings a different song
In America

Where does one start? Where in America is this factory line that kills babies "to make ends meet"? Do physicians become abortionists because that doctorin' work is just so hard to find? Is it the only way they can put food on their tables, or could it possible that they believe in supporting the reproductive and emotional health of their patients?

And cheers to Creed for their savvy exploitation of teen angst -- oh, it's just so hard to figure out "what is right or wrong" these days, isn't it? Maybe for this band, it is, but many of us have our moral compasses set just fine, thanks.

Labels: religion

MAYBE IT'LL SOUND BETTER COMING FROM HIM

Charles Kimball is chair of the department of religion at Wake Forest University and the author of three books about religion in the Middle East. His latest couldn't be more necessary -- it seems he's cast his net a little wider this time for a timely overview entitled When Religion Becomes Evil. As he puts it:

"Whatever religious people may say about their love of God or the mandates of their religion, when their behavior toward others is violent and destructive, when it causes suffering among their neighbors, you can be sure the religion has been corrupted and reform is desperately needed. When religion becomes evil these five corruptions are always present. Conversely, when religion remains true to its authentic sources, it is actively dismantling these corruptions ..."

Dr. Kimball's new book will be featured in the New York Times on -- when else? -- September 11th and while I'm sure the press and public will eagerly listen to his critiques of Islamic fundamentalism, I hope this Baptist scholar won't let his own clan off too easy. Religious fundamentalism -- Islamic, Christian, Zionist, whichever -- is steadily becoming one of humanity's most troubling issues and it has to stop before more innocents are killed. Cheers to Charles Kimball for beating the drum.

Labels: religion

OK, I LIED...

I am posting more about World Youth Day, specifically the astonishing $30-million deficit for the organizers, despite the City of Toronto ponying up massive subsidies right at the start. Most of the shortfall, according to Canoe.ca, "came from a lack of registration payments. Organizers had expected 300,000 pilgrims to pay $240 each to register for the event, but they only received about 187,000 registrations." Not to mention the fact that crowd estimates hit the half-million mark. Skipping out on church payments doesn't seem like the Christian thing to do, does it?

The worst part is that there's talk underway to have citizens in Toronto or even Canada in general shell out even more in an attempt to match the necessary funds. A charity drive or a general appeal to Catholics is one thing but I humbly suggest that there's no damn way the WYD bunch should get another penny out of the government -- municipal, provincial or federal.

Perhaps now's a good time to let the Pope know that many of those gold chalices lying around Vatican City would fetch a pretty penny at Sotheby's. Maybe there'd even be some money left over to feed the poor or something. Don't say I didn't try to help.

Labels: Canada, religion, Trawna