The "homosexual" agenda gets a lot of attention on Fox News which has apparently concluded, along with Pat Robertson, One Million Moms, the American Family Association and other such self-appointed "guardians" of American morality that gays have a not-so-secret "game plan" for undermining and destroying the fabric of our national (and, of course, "Christian") society. Pat Robertson even suggested that Christians need a "vomit button" to hit when the gays just seem too "perverted" or "icky."Actually, though, isn't it the other way around? Isn't it the Christians who are the perverts? Isn't it the fundamentalist Christians who are endeavoring to subvert the Republic?
It would certainly seem so to me. Because, truly, any moderately intelligent student of history knows that it's utter rubbish to assert, as these delusional gasbags do, that "America was founded as a Christian nation" and that the framers of our Constitution intended to create yet another theist state with an established and mandatorily-embraced mythology as its default ideology.
Jefferson said, "Religions are all alike -- founded on fables and mythologies."
Madison wrote, "What has been the fruits of Christianity? ...Superstition, bigotry and persecution."
Well, I agree with both statements. And I therefore announce (this isn't much of a surprise, I suppose) that I stand, with Jefferson and Madison, in opposition to the following noxious tenets of the Christian (not homosexual) Agenda that, in my opinion, poses a continuing menace to the survival of our secular Republic--the noble institution that Franklin said the Founders had given us "if we can keep it.":
1. Christian teachers who recruit, attempting to turn innocent children into intolerant, other-hating, Christians like themselves;
2. Advocating prayer in schools, a clear attempt at brainwashing kids into believing that docile wishing for something is an effective alternative to taking action to achieve that thing;
3. Tax exemptions for churches; why should such anti-democratic and fundamentally seditious, institutions receive fiduciary privileges?
4. Public displays of spirituality; more propaganda and attempts to influence impressionable minds (religion is a private matter);
5. So-called "family values"; sentimental and distorted view of human realities; a perversion, really, not to mention a misrepresentation of the historical Jesus--who abandoned his family, never married, never had kids and never held a job;
6. Missionary sexual mores; boring, conformist, unoriginal approach to something that should be not just procreative but recreative--and joyfully creative whether or not babies result;
7. Putting Christ in Christmas; brainwashing, using emotion and sentiment to promote a nefarious agenda and foster belief in at least one clearcut lie--that Jesus' birth coincided with pre-existing Winter Solstice celebrations--as well as in a probable second lie--that said Jesus was "god" incarnate;
8. Christian lifestyle, churchgoing, praying, Jesus movies, icky stuff like that; cringeworthy foolishness in such bad taste and of such dubious social usefulness that it should not be given public approbation; indecent, patently offensive behavior.
9. Church bells on Sunday morning; why make the whole world wake up, just because you feel guilty and want to celebrate your guilt; a public nuisance;
10. Prayer before city council meetings; no superstitious, hypocritical religious nonsense in any public forum; clearly unconstitutional!
11. In-your-face religious garb: priests and nuns and Jesus t-shirts with offensive pictures or slogans; now I realize that "believers" have a first-amendment right to express themselves. But is it really necessary to deliberately provoke your law-abiding atheist neighbors with this dominionist garbage? Please wear this obscene stuff only when participating in your cult rituals.
12. "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance; how dare you try to force good Americans to pledge allegiance to some silly, mean-spirited "sky daddy"!
13. "In God We Trust" on our money; why not trust people; GOD ain't gonna pay the interest.
14. Insane attempts to legislate fertilized eggs (embryos) into "personhood"; your personal fantasies do not constitute demonstrable fact.
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. This subversive "agenda" goes on and on--and its advocates are everywhere--on Fox News, in Congress, in the malls, and behind the wheels of those trucks with little "fishy" bumper stickers! But this is NOT what our Enlightenment Founders intended. No way! Yes, I suppose that silly, credulous people have the right to worship tinpot gods if they want, but they they have NO RIGHT to expect good Enlightenment Americans to grant special privileges to them or their bilge. To use one of their favorite expressions (when they are denouncing homosexuals), they have NO RIGHT to ram this nonsense down our throats. They are not entitled to any special public status by virtue of their private beliefs and practices. So Christians: go to church if you want; pray to Jesus if you want; say "Merry Christmas" if you want (and if you don't mind offending others); fast on Good Friday if you want; mumble "God Bless You" when someone sneezes if you want. But leave the rest of us alone and don't try to make America LOOK LIKE YOU. Because, frankly, most of you (I make exception for a few milquetoast Episcopalians and Congregationalists) are pretty ugly, Christians. You're awfully, awfully, well...the first word that comes to my mind is "icky." Yes, that's right: you are icky people. Just as Jefferson and Madison knew. Ewwww (*pushes Robertson's vomit button*).
P.S.: OK, I acknowledge that in writing this post, I chose to be deliberately "over-the-top" in co-opting the anti-gay language so frequently employed by asshole televangelists and extreme fundamentalist politicians. I am fully aware that many sensible and sensitive Christians do not share the views that I have denounced. Still, I think it is a good exercise for Christians of all stripes to begin to think differently--to stop assuming that THEY are the "norm" and that OTHERS are the "outliers" or "threats." Maybe, just maybe, it's the CHRISTIAN lifestyle (not the homosexual lifestyle, not the humanist lifestyle, not the Muslim or the Jewish or the Spaghetti-Monster lifestyle) that is keeping our society from realizing its full potential as a more compassionate and more perfect Union.
And even if this is not so, even if Christians are just an innocuous group of folks with over-active imaginations and nasty (but "harmless") vocabulary, isn't it about time that they actually FEEL what it's like to be treated by their fellow citizens as dangerous and debauched scum? I offer no apologies for this "turnabout" lesson.
1. Christian teachers who recruit, attempting to turn innocent children into intolerant, other-hating, Christians like themselves;2. Advocating prayer in schools, a clear attempt at brainwashing kids into believing that docile wishing for something is an effective alternative to taking action to achieve that thing;
3. Tax exemptions for churches; why should such anti-democratic and fundamentally seditious, institutions receive fiduciary privileges?
4. Public displays of spirituality; more propaganda and attempts to influence impressionable minds (religion is a private matter);
5. So-called "family values"; sentimental and distorted view of human realities; a perversion, really, not to mention a misrepresentation of the historical Jesus--who abandoned his family, never married, never had kids and never held a job;
6. Missionary sexual mores; boring, conformist, unoriginal approach to something that should be not just procreative but recreative--and joyfully creative whether or not babies result;
7. Putting Christ in Christmas; brainwashing, using emotion and sentiment to promote a nefarious agenda and foster belief in at least one clearcut lie--that Jesus' birth coincided with pre-existing Winter Solstice celebrations--as well as in a probable second lie--that said Jesus was "god" incarnate;
8. Christian lifestyle, churchgoing, praying, Jesus movies, icky stuff like that; cringeworthy foolishness in such bad taste and of such dubious social usefulness that it should not be given public approbation; indecent, patently offensive behavior.
9. Church bells on Sunday morning; why make the whole world wake up, just because you feel guilty and want to celebrate your guilt; a public nuisance;
10. Prayer before city council meetings; no superstitious, hypocritical religious nonsense in any public forum; clearly unconstitutional!
11. In-your-face religious garb: priests and nuns and Jesus t-shirts with offensive pictures or slogans; now I realize that "believers" have a first-amendment right to express themselves. But is it really necessary to deliberately provoke your law-abiding atheist neighbors with this dominionist garbage? Please wear this obscene stuff only when participating in your cult rituals.12. "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance; how dare you try to force good Americans to pledge allegiance to some silly, mean-spirited "sky daddy"!
13. "In God We Trust" on our money; why not trust people; GOD ain't gonna pay the interest.
14. Insane attempts to legislate fertilized eggs (embryos) into "personhood"; your personal fantasies do not constitute demonstrable fact.
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. This subversive "agenda" goes on and on--and its advocates are everywhere--on Fox News, in Congress, in the malls, and behind the wheels of those trucks with little "fishy" bumper stickers! But this is NOT what our Enlightenment Founders intended. No way! Yes, I suppose that silly, credulous people have the right to worship tinpot gods if they want, but they they have NO RIGHT to expect good Enlightenment Americans to grant special privileges to them or their bilge. To use one of their favorite expressions (when they are denouncing homosexuals), they have NO RIGHT to ram this nonsense down our throats. They are not entitled to any special public status by virtue of their private beliefs and practices. So Christians: go to church if you want; pray to Jesus if you want; say "Merry Christmas" if you want (and if you don't mind offending others); fast on Good Friday if you want; mumble "God Bless You" when someone sneezes if you want. But leave the rest of us alone and don't try to make America LOOK LIKE YOU. Because, frankly, most of you (I make exception for a few milquetoast Episcopalians and Congregationalists) are pretty ugly, Christians. You're awfully, awfully, well...the first word that comes to my mind is "icky." Yes, that's right: you are icky people. Just as Jefferson and Madison knew. Ewwww (*pushes Robertson's vomit button*).P.S.: OK, I acknowledge that in writing this post, I chose to be deliberately "over-the-top" in co-opting the anti-gay language so frequently employed by asshole televangelists and extreme fundamentalist politicians. I am fully aware that many sensible and sensitive Christians do not share the views that I have denounced. Still, I think it is a good exercise for Christians of all stripes to begin to think differently--to stop assuming that THEY are the "norm" and that OTHERS are the "outliers" or "threats." Maybe, just maybe, it's the CHRISTIAN lifestyle (not the homosexual lifestyle, not the humanist lifestyle, not the Muslim or the Jewish or the Spaghetti-Monster lifestyle) that is keeping our society from realizing its full potential as a more compassionate and more perfect Union.
And even if this is not so, even if Christians are just an innocuous group of folks with over-active imaginations and nasty (but "harmless") vocabulary, isn't it about time that they actually FEEL what it's like to be treated by their fellow citizens as dangerous and debauched scum? I offer no apologies for this "turnabout" lesson.
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