Reason # 674 why I'm glad I'm an atheist

The guys from Insane Clown Posse outed themselves as evangelical Christians. They'll need to change their name now to Inane Clown Posse.

Christians all over the world must be rejoicing now that the lads from ICP have joined their ranks.

I wonder if they'll release a gospel CD. Gosh, I sure hope so.

Today's modern hip happenin' Christians speak out on the world's problems

"We don't worry about global warming out here in God's country because we know he's up there and he'll take care of his own. We also don't worry about all the stuff that the local chemical plant pumps out into our river at night and when it gets foggy. And we don't worry about the rash of home invasion robberies either. In fact, there ain't much we worry about now that we got Jesus in our hearts."

"We do yoga in my church. It's totally cool. I focus on my breath, my body movements, and on protecting my privates from the minister's son."

"The other night I prayed and asked God to make everything in Haiti all better after the earthquake. Then the next day I saw on the news that he didn't do it, so I'm going to assume he wants Haiti to remain in shambles so that twenty bucks I was going to send to earthquake relief is going to buy me a lap dance and some Boone's Farm later."

"Jesus never had socialized medicine, so neither should we! 9/11! Freedom!"

"Why are you people still here? Go away. Can't you see I'm praying?"

"I was going to quit smoking, lay off of beating my kids, and stop poisoning all the dogs and cats in my neighborhood until I heard that gays want to get married. Now all bets are off because if God is okay with those people getting hitched, then he's okay with what I do. Praise his holy name and hand me a pack of Kools!"

"Okay, I'll admit it. I caused the earthquake in Chile. I wanted a day off from my job at the llama polishing factory so I sacrificed a Mormon missionary to Baal and in return I asked for a natural disaster of some sort. I'm sorry if you lost your house or some loved ones, I just really needed a day off."

"Hey look, I'm in color now! Thank you Jesus!"

"Can someone give me a lift to that animal stoning? I'm an old woman and I don't drive anymore but my arm is still good and I've been saving rocks in the hope that one day they would bring back stoning. Plus, I really hate whales. Dirty whale bastards, just you wait until I get my hands on you. I'll smote you without pity. Just like Jesus would!"

Rev. Pat Robertson on the earthquake in Chile

Leader of the Christians, Pat Robertson, today released the following statement of blame for the massive earthquake in Chile:

"True story, in 1973 Chile elected a Communist to lead their government. The earthquake was punishment for that. God hates Communism. Also he is punishing Chile for electing a woman president, for not making their citizens speak English, and for having a country named after a food. And the queers too. The queers in Chile brought this on their country. Every time a hot young full breasted woman kissed another hot young full breasted woman right on the lips while their tongues snaked around each other and their heaving bosoms heaved while their soft hands caressed each other...hang on...what was I saying? Hmmmmm. Oh yes, this was all brought on by men having butt sex with other men. And the Commies. Yeah, that's it. Jesus hates that stuff."

Pot meet kettle

Pat Robertson, one of the men who worked tirelessly to drag evangelical Christians into the political arena, lashed out at Islam the other day. He claimed it was not a religion but a political system that was bent on world domination.

Of course the fact that the Bronze age cult that he is a leader of wants to dominate the world and turn us all into Bible thumpin' followers of right wing Republican tax cuts for the rich Jesus must have slipped his increasingly senile mind.

One of the most pressing problems we face today as humans is religious extremism. And I mean extremism from Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, Scientologists, Shintoists, etc. When one religion claims it is the only one true religion and it's adherents then try to force it on others and insert it in to government, then we've got problems and people are going to take the metaphor of their religion seriously enough to kill others who don't believe as they do.

Maybe if idiots like Pat Robertson keep up their nonsense then more people will get disgusted with organized religion and they'll stop taking him and his twisted metaphors literally.

Hate and Maine

Fear and hate won the day in Maine this past election day. And no matter what you say, that election was all about hate and keeping gays and lesbians from having their civil rights. I've seen the ads the anti gay marriage people ran in Maine and they are all fear based. They played on the uneducated and religious people's basest darkest fears. They used the fear of children being exposed to homosexual sex to scare people into voting to take away rights that they themselves already have.
And let's be honest here too, the gay marriage foes are against same sex marriage because their church tells them to be. It is written in their book of metaphors and fairy tales that it is evil for two dudes to kiss and love one another and it's horrible if two women make love with each other and have a stable loving home. Some guy chiseled that into a stone tablet back in the Bronze age so it must be true.

But people of reason and goodwill know it's not. And another thing we know is that if your religion and your church and your minister is against same sex marriage and extending civil rights to gays, lesbians, and transgendered folks then you are too . It doesn't matter if you say you're for same sex marriage, if your church is against it, then so are you. If you proclaim your love for gays and you say you want them to be able to get married, but if the religion you follow is against it, then so are you. If you are a Roman Catholic and you say, "I love teh gay! I want teh gays to get married!," but your church as a whole opposes same sex marriage and works to outlaw it, then you by your financial support, by your attendance, by your adherence to it's dogma, help keep those gays you claim to love from having marriage equality. Same goes if you're a United Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Sikh, a Muslim, a Seventh Day Adventist, a Scientologist, a what the fuck ever. If you really want to see gays get the right to marry then you need to stop supporting religious organizations that work their sanctimonious asses off to keep them from being equal.

Film director Paul Haggis put his money where his mouth was and he very publicly left the cult of Scientology over this issue. How many of you have left your church over it? How many of you pay lip service to loving gays and wanting gay marriage but still pay, through your donations, to keep gays separate and unequal?
But you know, having lived in the so called Bible belt for so many years amongst some of the most hypocritical people on earth when it comes to religion and sex, I can see how and why they hate gays so much. The born agains hate and fear gays because their Bible tells them to and because they are either uneducated or just plain ignorant. A former boss of mine, a reasonably intelligent woman with a college degree, once told me that she was glad that gays couldn't serve in the military because she was afraid if they were allowed to serve in the middle of battle those gays might be winking at other soldiers instead of trying to kill the enemy. And the sad truth is she's not the only one who thinks that gay people are some kind of hypersexed beasts who think of nothing but getting it on. When you hear someone claim they don't their kids around homos, it's a good bet they think that somehow gays can't control themselves sexually around anyone, especially kids.

While I can see why people who believe that witches are real and that the earth is only a little over 6000 years old hate gays and want to keep them from having the same freedoms and rights that straight people have, there is one group who's opposition to same sex marriage baffles me and that group is black people who lived through the Jim Crow years. If anyone would know what it feels like to be a second class citizen with the law stacked against them, then it's older black folks. The parallels between the struggle for civil rights for blacks in the 1950's and 1960's and the fight for equality for gay folks are as obvious as the noses on their faces. Both groups were ostracized and derided for seeking justice, both groups were beaten and mocked for seeking equality, both groups were told that the oppressors had the Bible and Jesus on their side, and both groups faced enormous amounts of hatred when they set out to gain rights that others had.

Just like in the struggle for civil rights for black folks, the federal government is going to have to step in on this one. If the government hadn't stepped in and forced schools to desegregate then it would never have happened. If Robert Kennedy and LBJ hadn't used the power of the federal government to stop voter intimidation then many black folks would still be unable to vote in many parts of this country.

The sad fact is that in this country the minority will always have to use the power of the courts and the federal government to gain equal rights. If we had put civil rights for blacks up for a vote back in the '60's like we do same sex marriage today, then blacks would still be living under Jim Crow laws today. It's time for our judges to become activist once again, like they did when Earl Warren was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and extend marriage rights to all the citizens of this nation.

When Jesus said to love everyone, he didn't mean gays too did he?

Okay, fat forty something guys like me who generally despise everything Disney spews out of it's corporate ass are not the target demographic for Miley Ray Cyrus and her TV show/movie/singing career. And also I really despise the whole Hannah Montana thing and I despise her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, for being so willing to pimp his underage daughter out so that he can try to save his declining career. You need to understand all that up front. I have no love for either of those hicks or for Disney, but if you like them then that's fine by me, to each his or her own.
But now something has happened that makes me loathe her a little less. I'm not sure where or why she spoke out about gay folks. She basically said that she was a Christian who loves all people, gays included. She reminded people that God's greatest commandment is to love one another, and that includes loving gays as well as straights. That's pretty forward thinking for someone like her. And it's thinking that should be applauded and emulated.

Unless you're in Rev. Donald Wildmon's American Family Association that is. They have condemned Miley Ray for being tolerant, loving, and inclusive. They've come out against a teenage girl for having the gall to remind folks that God is supposed to be love. They're hating it that Miley Ray has a better grasp on the Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ than their bigoted hateful old asses do. I've read the entire New Testament, and most of the Old, and it says repeatedly that we are supposed to love one another and our enemies. To my mind that pretty much encompasses everyone on the planet including, gays, lesbians, blacks, browns, yellows, reds, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Jews, Zoroastrians, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Wiccans, and everyone else.

But somehow the good "Christians" at Rev. Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, which by the way does not represent me or any family I have ever been in, find Miley's love for her fellow men and women somehow wrong and worthy of their scorn. Here's what they had to say about Miley's pronouncement that we are supposed to love everyone whether they are straight or gay:

Such statements will send the wrong message to our children who are influenced by this teenage megastar. Parents need to realize that Cyrus is not the positive role model she was once thought to be.... Clearly she is confused and does not understand the Bible.

Crazy huh? Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself. He said to love your enemies. He said the greatest commandment is love, above all love. And the young Miley gets it. She understands it and is trying to love her life according to the teachings of Jesus. I'm not sure what Bible the AFA is reading but they are the ones who don't understand the Bible most everyone else reads. Nowhere in the New Testament, which supersedes the Old testament if you are a Christian, does it say to hate or demonize or scapegoat gays for all the ills of the world. Nowhere does it say it's okay to hate someone if they love people of their own gender.

Clearly the AFA hates Miley's message of tolerance and inclusion. They must have assumed that because Miley is from the south that she'd be as small minded and hate filled towards gays as they are.

I'm glad Ms. Cyrus proved them wrong. But that doesn't mean I'm about to ever watch her TV show or see the Hannah Montana movie or listen to one of her CD's.

They don't like the competition

The reason Sally Kern and the evangelical Christians hate homosexuality so much is because in their minds the gay agenda is too much competition for them. You see, they believe, and wrongly so I might add, that part of the homosexual "agenda" is to proselytize people to get them to "turn" gay. And they think that proselytizing is their domain alone and they don't need all those homos trying to muscle in on their turf.

They think nothing of constantly forcing others to listen to their message of "love" but then when gays or friends of gays talk about equality for everyone under the law they scream that we're disrespectful of their religion. If it was the case that Sally and the evangelicals had to compete head to head against the gay movement for the hearts and minds and members, oops, I mean for the hearts and minds of the members of the human race, then Sally and the Jeebus lovers would lose hands down. Think about it, if you're a Christian then you get your ultimate reward after you die, if you're gay you get it after going to the gym, after going out for drinks, after watching Lost, after you wake up, etc. Seriously, if it came down to choosing to follow some stone age religion that puts all kinds of restrictions on you and tells you you're going to hell the second you pop out of the womb or choosing to be a part of a well dressed, well groomed, tasteful, pleasure loving group of folks who make love to people of their own gender then the ranks of homosexuals all over the world would be swollen beyond belief.

But they are not. And they never will be because the notion that gays, lesbians, and transsexuals are out there recruiting in the schools, through the mass media, and on the streets of every city is nonsense. But you know who is out there recruiting in the schools, in the mass media, and on the streets of every city? Evangelicals, that's who.

I can tell you from my 46 years of life experience that no gay has ever tried to recruit me to become gay. Maybe it's because they know I'd never hit the gym enough to get a set of rock hard six pack abs and an ass so tight you could bounce a quarter to the moon off it. Or maybe the fundamentalists need someone and something to hate and demonize and they decided the target for their twisted rage is going to be the gays and the lesbians until it's fashionable to hate black and brown skinned folks again. Maybe the fundies need to try to stay relevant in the press so they decided that they better go after the one group of folks they think are weaker than them.

And please notice that I did not lump all of you believers in together. I know there are many Christians who don't hate or fear or scapegoat gays. It's too bad for them that people like Sally Kern, Fred Phelps, and Pat Robertson are the Christians people identify with the sect of Jesus. Maybe if more Christians loved more and judged less then people wouldn't be so turned off to Christianity.