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Fairytales for a Practical Princess - 2008-11-30
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11:00 a.m. - 2005-04-20
The fever is down to a low simmer. My brain is being pot-roasted inside my skull. Not especially good for me. However this would be a fine treat should the cannibals stop by later. Perhaps I should jam some carrots in my ears. Carrots are always good with pot roast. So how about that new Pope, eh? Some folks are leery. Some are disappointed. I am not surprised in the least. Of course the Church had to pick a former Hitler Youth and theological fundamentalist. Religious fundamentalism is all the rage right now. It’s the ‘in’ thing for the religious to be exclusionary gits with zero compassion and many many pointy fingers. It’s all the buzz to be hard cases who don’t care jack shit for the downtrodden and the poor. Why? Why have the religious turned their backs on the needy? First, there’s no money in it. Second, where’s the fun? Nothing fun about building hospitals, purifying water, or giving skinny wormy kids their shots. Way more fun to blow up shit. Way more fun to sit with the Prez and gleefully come up with ways to jam doctrine down the public’s throat. A good honking crusade of hatred is just the ticket to get the masses on your side. A God-a-palooza of intolerance and hysteria. The Muslims are in. The Uber-Christians are in. The Orthodox Jews are in. You think the Catholics are going to miss the show? Nuh uh. They want their turn at the mike and taking up causes like inclusion, dealing with reality, and providing help as well as hope to the miserable of the world would get them booed right off the stage. The Religious are all about the hate right now. It’s what gets them face time in the media and it’s what loosens wallets. Folks who’d never drop a buck in a beggar’s cup will throw all kinds of dough at a ‘Campaign for Decency’ ie: Let’s stomp queers into paste and feel smug about our holiness. People love when they can bully and hector and even do violence and believe they get brownie points with God for doing it. Anyone with an ounce of sense would see that a true God of love wouldn’t be meeting you at the gate of Heaven with 77 virgins after blowing up yourself and taking a market full of housewives and kids with you. A God of mercy and compassion and all encompassing joy isn’t going to anoint your head with oil and say, “Well done, faithful servant,” after you burnt down the gay bar. Especially if the bar was full of people at the time. Anyone who claims differently is a self-serving fool. “Oh LA! How can you say such things? We aren’t indulging our blood thirst and calling it piety! No, no! We are ‘defending our faith’!” Really? That’s just what Torquemada said. He wasn’t getting his rocks off with the torture, the brutality, and the murder! No sir! He was defending the faith! The good folks of Salem weren’t having a hate orgy, blowing off the frustration of an insanely repressive lifestyle by flogging, stoning and hanging people. Nope. They were defending their faith. Those Taliban guys didn’t enjoy one single bit of the beheadings and honor killings and jack booting around with their whips and canes. By gum, they were defending their faith. The Children’s Crusade? The routing of the Huguenots? The Intifada? Carrie Nation and the babes of the WCTU trashing saloons? The Southern Baptists standing solidly behind Wallace and his segregation policies? They certainly were not bigots, haters, vandals or criminals. They were just good old fashioned decent folk defending their faith. Right? “LA, that’s not fair! You used some extreme examples. What’s going on in America these days can’t be compared to the Inquisition. You can’t lump us in with the Taliban.” Why not? People aren’t being repressed? People aren’t being stripped of civil rights? People aren’t being excluded from protection by the law? People aren’t being killed? Oh yeah? Tell that to Matthew Sheppard. Tell that to Bernard Slepian. So no, I wasn’t surprised in the least over the election of the Popenator. Fundamentalism is the name of the game and the Catholics aren’t about to miss out on hanging with the cool kids. Sorry, gotta run. God just called. Seems there’s some heretic nurse trying to give emergency contraception to a gang raped 15 year old. Can you believe the evil of some nurses? How little they respect decency? Got to stop that shit right now. By any means necessary. Defending the faith, ~LA
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