True Believers

There seems to be a pattern developing and I guess it's a good one when you consider that I can get twice the promotion by posting a pair of links instead of just one.

Last night I published a new column over at the Daily Banter and now I'm pushing it here. Today's piece once again has to do with religion, and a Philadelphia couple accused of praying over their sick child instead of getting him medical attention. You can guess what happened.

I'm not going to excerpt anything from it, just have a look for yourself. Suffice to say there's a twist to the story that will likely infuriate you, and no, it's not that this couple very likely killed their 8-month-old baby -- it's that they never should've been put in a position where they could.

Read the Story Here

Me of Little Faith

Today's column over at the Daily Banter once again has to do with religion, namely it seeks to understand why some turn to God in times of great tragedy while others, myself included, see tragedy as more reason than ever not to have turn to God.

Here's the opening:

"On the morning of September 11th, 2001, as the unimaginably horrific sight of bodies raining down from the upper floors of the World Trade Center was being beamed out across the country and around the world, my grandmother sat on the couch in my parents’ living room taking it all in. She was an elderly woman and a devout old-school Catholic, so with her eyes fixed on the televised images of the agonizing carnage unfolding in New York City, she reacted the only way she knew how. She swallowed back a despairing gasp, brought her hand up to nearly cover her mouth, and said, 'God love ‘em.'

I remember my reaction like it was yesterday."

Read the Rest Here

Quote of the Day

"When Martin Luther King Jr. called on the nation to 'live up to the meaning of its creed,' he heard an echo from a thousand pulpits. Treating black folks decently was consistent with what Christians had been taught. Dr. King was pushing against an open door. Priests and pastors marched for civil rights. Others preached for civil rights. But if the gay rights agenda is imposed, we could have priests and pastors preaching not acceptance but principled rejection. Prelates could be declaring from pulpits everywhere that the triumph of gay rights is a defeat for God’s Country, and the new laws are immoral and need neither be respected nor obeyed."

-- Pat Buchanan, warning of possible civil disobedience by the religious and religious leaders if gay marriage becomes legal across the United States

This is exactly what I was talking about in the Daily Banter column on religion that I wrote over the weekend. A person's supposed right to adhere to the tenets of his or her faith -- which, if that person is a voter, often winds up being inflicted upon the rest of us -- is in no way equal to the right of living, breathing human beings to be treated the same. Or at least it shouldn't be equal. I don't care whether you feel discriminated against because the law is siding with what gay men and women want over what your imaginary friend wants, but reality should win in any case where it collides with faith.

Also, how much do you love Pat Buchanan pretending to give a shit about black people?

The Weeping Angels

Today's Daily Banter column looks at the collective freak-out the Christian right is having over gay marriage and how evangelicals and the like now want us to believe that they're the persecuted ones.

Here's the opening shot:

"It’s always entertaining to watch the right, particularly the Christian right, whine about victimization. As Steve Benen over at the Maddowblog says today, no one’s raised self-pity to a melodramatic art form the way America’s conservative Christians have, regardless of their particular political or denominational bent. To hear Pat Robertson, or William Donohue of the Catholic League, or Bill O’Reilly, or many, many others tell it, you’d think Christians were still being thrown to lions, maybe along the Capitol Mall, and a date with the cross awaited anybody who dared to slap a Jesus fish on the back of his car. If the Sodom-and-Gomorrah-esque anti-God dystopia Christians complain exists in American society really did exist, Tim Tebow would’ve been burned alive years ago rather than be allowed to become a guy who gets paid an obscene amount of money to be a shitty quarterback."

Read the Rest Here

Son of Man-on-Man

Screw the Quvenzhané Wallis controversy from a couple of months back -- it's stuff like this that makes The Onion a national treasure and should buy it a bottomless reservoir of good will.

The Onion: "I Feel Very Strongly About Gay Marriage Because I Have a Gay Son" by God/3.26.13

It makes a positive statement about same-sex marriage and promises to infuriate the Christian Right even more than a positive statement about same-sex marriage. Win-win.

Gut Check

A good summation of the conservative way of seeing the world from Cesca today over at the Banter, in a piece called "Romney, Like Many Republicans, Trusted His Heart Over Reality."

"Instead of embracing the broad scientific consensus on the climate crisis, Republicans trust their gut that it’s not real (or not man-made, or both) and they confirm their whimsy with a relatively small handful of crackpot scientists — the Dean Chamberses of climate study. On austerity and deficit reduction, Republicans trust their gut that steep spending reductions following a deep recession will stimulate economic growth when, in fact, there’s not one single example of this occurring in the history of the American economy. Not one. Libertarian Republicans are even worse, believing that confederations combined with severely limited central governments will actually work when nearly all historical examples of such systems have failed. They believe the deficit has skyrocketed when, in fact, it’s dropped by $555 billion since Obama has been president. Too many conservatives believe the president wasn’t born Hawaii in spite of all the evidence proving he was. They also believe that Islamic evildoers are lurking around every corner waiting to crash airplanes into rural town squares. Hell, way too many conservatives believe that Jesus was a capitalist warhawk. Because they really, really want him to be."

I'm posting this here because Cesca makes a roundabout point that I've actually made a couple of times before. While not every single conservative is a die-hard religious fundamentalist, there's no denying that religion -- particularly Christianity -- and American conservatism are inextricably linked in the eyes of most people. If you're really into Jesus and believe that he's coming back soon to whisk his children up to heaven in a magic chariot while tossing the rest of us into the lake of fire for all eternity, there's a pretty good chance your politics land you squarely in the Republican registry.

What Cesca's getting at, and what I've always believed, is that the kind of faith that allows someone to abandon logic, reason and empirical reality in favor of an unwavering devotion to a 2,000-year-old book of wild stories -- millions of animals on an ark, walking on water, resurrection from the dead, people living to be nearly a thousand -- is the kind of faith that will allow you to believe in literally anything. It's not much of a stretch to go from thinking the world was created in six days, 6,000 years ago, to being utterly convinced that climate change is a lie, the economy is shrinking and the government is coming for your guns. Oh, and that Barack Obama is going to lose the presidential election because everyone hates him.

Conspiracy theories and insane fantasies aren't that hard to swallow when you've decided that proof doesn't really matter to you. And religious faith requires no proof at all, that's why it's called faith. But as I've said before, when you choose to replace a fundamental reliance on evidence -- the yardstick that measures our reality and which should be the same across the board for almost everyone -- with flights of fancy, what you get is chaos. That and the ability to fall for absolutely any bunch of nonsense.

Abandon All Pope

Today's column for the Daily Banter takes a look at what kind of changes we can expect for the Catholic Church in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's decision to step aside. The short answer: not much.

Here's the opening shot:

"I suppose it would be too much to ask for the Catholic Church to simply close up shop once Pope Benedict officially steps down, eh?

The important thing to keep in mind in the wake of the once-and-future Joseph Ratzinger’s surprise announcement that he’ll be abdicating the papacy is that it’s likely going to change nothing about the Catholic Church. Yes, it’s an interesting and eyebrow-raising development, one that caps off a tumultuous eight year run for the current pontiff and the church in general, but let’s face it: Expecting that a new man at the top of the Catholic food chain will mean the sudden embracing of new ideas of right and wrong, of morality and modernity, would be sheer folly. The church has existed in its present state, for the most part impervious to human enlightenment and the march of progress, for centuries. Maybe the next pope will deliver the traditional canon and ancient edicts of Catholicism with the kindly smile, avuncular tone and all-around media savvy of John Paul II — rather than through the thoroughly creepy Galactic Emperor sneer Benedict has terrified the world with for almost a decade — but in the end the canon and edicts will be exactly the same. The messenger will change — the message will stay the same."

Read the Rest Here

Picture of the Day

Posted to Reddit by an Applebee's waitress named Chelsea who has since been fired for doing so.

The receipt was apparently signed by a local pastor who, as you can see, removed the included tip and wrote, "I give God 10%, why do you get 18?"

The original title that went with the Reddit post read, "My mistake sir, I'm sure Jesus will pay for my rent and groceries," which is pretty good.

My comment would've been more like, "Because I actually exist and was able to take care of you."

I have no doubt that Chelsea, as a budding internet sensation whom many already believe was unjustly canned, will be the beneficiary of a massive Kickstarter campaign or something like that, inadvertently making her just as insufferable as the asshole who took away her tip. But for now, she's got my sympathies. Besides, once people figure out who the pastor is and begin personally bombarding him with the abuse he deserves, it will all have been worth it.

Instant Update: That took no time at all. The pastor is 37-year-old Alois Bell of St. Louis -- he's a she, not a him, by the way -- and she's now apologizing and kind of groveling for forgiveness from an entity even mightier than God: the internet. "My heart is really broken," she says. “I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.” She goes on to say that the stiffing was a lapse in her usually good judgment. By the way, Bell was the one who called Applebee's and got Chelsea fired when she saw the receipt online.

Quote of the Day

"There is no scientific debate on the age of the earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively, it’s at least 4.5 billion years old. I was referring to a theological debate, which is a pretty health debate. And the theological debate is ... how do you reconcile with what science has definitively established with what you may think your faith teaches. Now for me, actually, when it comes to the age of the earth, there is no conflict. I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And I think that scientific advances have given us insight into when he did it and how he did it, but I still believe God did it... I just think in America we should have the freedom to teach our children whatever it is we believe. And that means teaching them science, they have to know the science, but also parents have the right to teach them the theology and to reconcile the two things."

-- Marco Rubio, "clarifying" his earlier position that because he's not a scientist, man, he couldn't tell you the age of the Earth

Here's the pertinent part of the quote: "I just think in America we should have the freedom to teach our children whatever it is we believe." Let me see if I can translate that for you: We should be able to teach our kids, and believe for ourselves, whatever the hell nonsense pops into our heads, no matter how utterly divorced from provable fact it is and expect to be taken seriously and have our beliefs deferred to. Sure, there may be science, math and hard evidence that contradicts the magical stories we've been told by a 2,000-year-old book written by people who for the most part believed that the world was no more than a couple of million square miles wide, but so what?

This is what I mean when I talk about taking issue with faith as a general concept and why I think its acceptance is dangerous. If I told you that I was teaching my four-year-old daughter that she should ignore science and instead believe that the world was created by a giant insect that rides a comet across the night sky, you'd not only think I was nuts, you'd discount the belief system entirely and wonder what the hell I was doing to my kid. There's no way in hell you'd show my belief, no matter how understanding you might be, any kind of respect whatsoever. And rightfully so. Yet if I tell you that I'm teaching my child that the world was created in six days, 6,000 years ago -- there are those out there, like Marco Rubio, who would tell me not only that it was acceptable but that it was my right as an American. It's my right, in other words, to be wrong.

This is why I can love and respect people of faith, but I have a very hard time respecting the faith itself.

By the way, in looking over a few things for this post and others on faith-based religion, I came across this -- and it is so jaw-dropping in its hilarious insanity that I'm pretty sure it could represent the event horizon of pure irony.

Sunday Sacrilege

As a perfect little Sunday Sacrilege entry, here's the full text of the piece posted this past Thursday at the Daily Banter on Pastor Rick Warren and his attempt to "logically" argue against homosexuality. It sums up pretty nicely my entire view of faith and why I feel the way I do about it.

Some of the most entertaining columns written for this site, I think, come from the times when Bob Cesca and I decide to get into a back-and-forth over subjects we're passionate about. While we both write here and host a podcast together, we obviously don't agree on everything nor should we; what the hell fun would that be? A couple of weeks back, Bob posted a piece that suggested that progressives need to stop demonizing people of faith and criticizing religion in general as being, essentially, a crutch for those not as evolved as, I guess, the liberal intelligentsia (who are generally insufferable anyway). From a purely PR perspective, he's absolutely right. I'm always one for acknowledging political reality, and it clearly dictates that contemptuously mocking someone's beliefs from on-high is the wrong way to win that person over to your cause. Bob's right on the money about this.

Then today he wrote a really nice little piece about everyone's favorite smug-prick-of-God Rick Warren -- pastor of California's Saddleback Mega-Church and cultivator, along with Chuck Todd, of the majestically sentient ginger goatee -- and his ongoing crusade to become America's most seemingly unthreatening homophobe and bigot. Basically, Warren went on Piers Morgan a couple of nights ago -- which speaks volumes about his judgment right there -- and claimed that being gay is just one of those natural impulses in some people that simply needs to be denied. His point is that you can have gay urges, but to act on them is dangerous and destructive. Examples of destructive urges that he, Rick Warren, personally experiences and denies include the desire to punch someone in the face and to cheat on his wife (thankfully, not the other way around, although it would've made for a much more revealing interview). Arsenic is found in nature, Warren says, but you wouldn't swallow it, silly.

So far, so predictably awful.

It's a waste to argue with Warren's logic because there isn't any there, which is kind of the point of what I'm about to say.

In his piece, Bob asks what exactly the "danger" is in being gay and where in the Bible it's justified that being gay is wrong and an affront to God. Here's the salient quote:

"If the Bible believes homosexuality is a criminally immoral act, where’s the victim? God? Why? How? No one can answer this question even though it’s the centerpiece of homophobic religious dogma."

This is a completely fair statement to make, but it betrays the problem with faith-based religion and, as a question, basically answers itself. The reality is that Rick Warren believes that being gay is wrong, dangerous and a sin against God because the Bible says so, in Leviticus 20:13. And here's the thing: that's good enough for Warren and many, many Christians. An outsider, one who believes in such quaint notions as asking for proof or demanding rational explanations for things, will come up against bulletproof obstinacy: the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it. There's no reasoning to be found there and no need to debate it any further, since the Bible is a holy book, the word of God, and we know this because it tells us it is. See how you can't get around that?

Bob, since he's sane, is attempting to apply things like logic, the burden of proof, etc. to a belief system based on none of these things. And that's the problem, the reason why people like myself are staunchly against not simply those who pervert faith but the concept of faith itself: because if something can't be subjected to the parameters that govern every other thing on the planet, every other discussion and debate, every part of our accepted reality, then that notion can be almost entirely dismissed as potentially fraudulent. The truth -- supported by empirical evidence -- is the yardstick by which we measure reality. If you don't have an at least functionally common yardstick as a society, everything descends into chaos. Anyone can make up any story he or she wants and call it the truth. And that's basically what faith-based religion is.

What's more, taking issue with someone's beliefs isn't necessarily off limits because it's our beliefs that inspire our actions. Being absolutely sure that you'll go on to another life will certainly influence your behavior in this one. Being 100% certain that the path you've chosen to God is the right one and that your savior demands that you educate as many people as you can while warning others about the impending doom they're facing should they continue on their own path will influence you as well. A specific set of beliefs is what makes you you. If these beliefs can stand up to the burden of proof we demand in all other areas of our lives, no problem. If they can't, there's a word for that, and it isn't faith -- it's delusion.

While I know a great many people who are religious whom I love dearly -- they're wonderful, good people -- I can respect them personally without respecting the belief they've chosen to embrace. I also think they'd be the same good people they are now irrespective of their faith in a deity. Faith doesn't make a bad person good or an inherently immoral person moral. I have no doubt that faith can play a positive role in people's lives, but ask yourself this: Is it really, say, God who gives the faithful comfort -- or is it the faith itself? The unshakable belief that someone is there watching out for them? The self-assurance that no matter what goes wrong, it's all part of a grand and magnificent plan to which you're not privy nor should you be?

There's an argument to be made that, hey, whatever gets you through the day. But that argument isn't, in and of itself, proof of that thing that gets you through the day. Santa Claus keeps kids excited and maybe even on their best behavior year-round, under penalty of getting a big lump of coal; it doesn't make him real.

Rick Warren believes homosexuality is dangerous and that God hates it because he believes it. Simple as that. No point at all in arguing with him. He's immune to contradictory theories or evidence because in his mind you can't theorize against God and there's no evidence that could possibly tear a belief system that's as flawlessly self-reinforcing as his asunder. If it's not based on proof anyway, how can it be disproven with contrary proof?

Again, I agree with Bob that beating up on people of faith is a terrible idea for those who espouse progressive politics -- although it should be mentioned that when I talk about religion, despite its insidious insinuation into our political discourse, I'm generally not approaching it from the perspective of a liberal or a conservative -- but that doesn't mean anyone should turn a blind eye to the problems too much religious adherence has created in our global society.

Because Rick Warren isn't a disease -- he's merely the symptom of one.

Quote of the Day

"(President Obama puts us on) a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty and compromises those values -- those Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values that made us a great and exceptional nation in the first place."

-- Paul Ryan, on a town hall-style call last night with social conservatives, organized by Ralph Reed

Uh-huh. I'll refer you to yesterday's post here.

Twist of Faith

Is it okay if I just continue to call them what I always have?

"Batshit Lunatics" has a really nice ring to it.

The Huffington Post: Southern Baptists Vote To Adopt New Name, Will Alternately Be Known as "Great Commission Baptists"/6.20.12

Goodbye, Purgatory

Somebody tweeted a link to this recent story yesterday afternoon along with the question, "Has the Catholic Church lost its mind?"

NBC 4 Washington: Girl Scout Troops Banned from Virginia Church/1.23.12

The answer to that is, of course, yes and no. Yes it's lost its mind, but no, not recently or anything -- because it never really had one to begin with, a fact which has been proven again and again over hundreds of years. We're lucky the church no longer has the imperial authority to wage actual blood-and-guts wars in the name of converting heretics to its way of "thinking," but it's still doing plenty of damage just by lobbing archaic edicts from the Vatican like psycho-bombs all across the globe. The Catholic power structure says birth control is verboten because the almighty creator of the universe says so and, surprise, hundreds of thousands -- possibly millions -- of unnecessary deaths and AIDS orphans in the Third World becomes a reality.

The only thing interesting about one Catholic church and school's audacious decision to target a bunch of Girl Scouts over the group's supposed link to Planned Parenthood -- and indeed the church's recent inserting of itself squarely into the ridiculous political fight over contraception -- is what it says about the entire organization's view of itself these days. Consider it a kind of subtle State of the Church address, and if you're listening closely you can hear exactly how the Catholic hierarchy, particularly in the United States, feels like its done its time and, in its own parlance, paid its penance after a metric ton of devastating press and lawsuit after lawsuit in the wake of the priest sex scandal -- and now it's ready to reassert itself as the moral authority that it is. That old Catholic swagger has returned in spades. The pride is back, baby.

The problem? The church may have conveniently forgiven itself -- what with being in the forgiveness business after all, especially when it comes to its own sins -- but most Americans haven't forgiven it, nor have they forgotten. Rick Santorum may be a beaver-shit crazy Catholic hardliner, one who hates birth control and who thinks Satan is making a play for the heart and soul of the United States, but he's part of a dwindling statistic: people who give a damn what the Catholic Church has to say about anything. Anything at all.

Quote of the Day Jr.

"(President Obama) has said he's a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is. All I know is I'm a sinner, and God has forgiven me of my sins... you have to ask every person."

-- Franklin Graham, this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe

A personal rule of thumb: If you've got the word "reverend" in front of your name chances are I'm gonna care less about your opinions on politics than I do about anything that comes out of the mouths of those people who won't shut up about Downton Abbey.

By the way, is Franklin Graham a self-righteous asshole? Well, he says he isn't, so I guess I'll have to take him at his word. You have to ask every person, though.

Quote of the Day

"I've repeatedly said I don't question the president's faith. I've repeatedly said that I believe the president's Christian -- he says he's Christian. But I am talking about his worldview, the way he addresses problems in this country, and they're different than most people view it in America."

-- Rick Santorum on CBS's Face the Nation this morning

That follows this little gem spouted off to, of course, a Tea Party rally in Ohio yesterday:

"It's not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."

Now take a look at the clock on your computer screen, or on your phone, or grab a calendar and remind yourself what the date is. What the year is. Force yourself to confront the fact that in the year 2012 a supposedly rational human being -- a man running for the highest office in the United States and not a fucking mental patient strapped to a bed in a padded room -- is taking his directives from a 2,000-year-old magic book and criticizing the man currently holding the highest office in the United States for supposedly not doing the same.

Sure, there are other countries where this much deference is given to superstitious nonsense by government and governmental leaders. You know what we generally call those countries? The Third World. Or the Middle East. Ironically, the areas Santorum and the rest of the right try to subtly and not-so-subtly paint Barack Obama as being from and beholden to.

Just four months ago I mentioned how this was coming -- yet again.

"Faith No More" (Originally Published 10.11.11)

I'll try to make this quick, since as I said I'm kind of pressed for time right now.

Chances are by now you're aware of the fallout from last week's Values Voters Summit, the annual event in which the hard-right Evangelical nutjob segment of the electorate gathers to throw King James Bibles at the feet of Republican leaders to see who will be the last one standing after beating his or her competition to death with one. This year, everybody seemed to be gunning for one guy: Mitt Romney. Poor Mitt got it hard from both ends, so to speak, as his place on the speaking roster happened -- through what I'm sure was complete coincidence -- to fall between Dallas megachurch demagogue Pastor Robert Jeffress and psychopathic talk radio host Bryan Fischer, both of whom have railed against Romney's Mormon faith as an insult to the one, true God.

Jeffress, who astonishingly is the cuddlier of the two, merely referred to Mormonism as a cult while lavishing praise on Rick Perry for supposedly being a trustworthy follower of Jesus Christ; Fischer took it three or four giant steps further, saying not only that a proven Christian and a proven Christian alone should be our next president, but that Sharia law is coming to take over our courts, homosexuals are a threat to the public health and the reason we haven't seen a successful attack on the contiguous 48 since 9/11 is that crowds sing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch at major league baseball games. And no, I'm not making that last one up.

Romney, to his credit, tried to take the high road in his reaction to all the hyper-pious pummeling. Of course at something like the Values Voters Summit, the high road doesn't need to be very high; the Lincoln Tunnel towers over the discourse at this thing.

So is Mormonism a cult? Was it, for the most part, the brainchild of con-men and has it been perpetuated by the power-hungry and adhered to by the weak and desperate? Is it a lunatic belief system that should have no place influencing American politics? Yes on all counts. But here's the thing: That makes it no different than any other faith-based religion.

Fischer and Jeffress have always been despicably hateful fuckers whose opinions needed to be pushed so far to the fringes that they practically vanish into the ether. But at this point more than any other in our recent history, this country does not have the luxury to concern itself with with ridiculous contrivances like which ancient superstition a candidate aligns him or herself with -- whether he or she passes some religious purity test by properly genuflecting before the right god.

Over the next few months, as the campaign ramps up, you're going to start hearing a lot more proclamations of faith from those running for the highest office in the world. They'll talk about how their belief in Jesus or whatever-the-hell guides them, and what's more, they'll do it largely as a theatrical act of indulgence, as a means of cynically pandering to those they feel they need to pander to in order to get elected. Their command performance may not always be at the whim of blatant sociopaths like Jeffress and Fischer, but it will certainly be as a show of respect to the supposedly benign faith of which these men have become extremist purveyors and arbiters. And that faith, while something I disagree with wholeheartedly as a rational human being, should at the very least be a personal choice and a personal choice only -- it should be something that at all times is excluded from American politics.

At this fragile point in our nation's history, the fact that our presidential candidates will feel that they have the latitude, even for a moment, to gush metaphysical politics-as-usual platitudes is simply terrifying. Discussing something as abstract and ineffectual as faith at this moment is akin to extolling one's own favorite lottery numbers. Neither offers a concrete method of action. Faith will never defend this country's people from the ongoing threats to their livelihood. God won't save us from the mess we're currently in.

We need something more than wishful thinking, and we don't have the time to talk about anything less.

Adding: Matt Osborne digs up and expounds on a Santorum speech from four years ago in which God's Favorite Candidate® enlightens us to the real threat facing the United States of America during this tumultuous period in our history. You guessed it: Satan. Again, please keep in mind that someone who believes that a fallen angel, a creature now residing in hell and responsible for all the bad in the universe, is at war with a heavenly creator and is now seeking to control the destiny of our country -- this guy is considered completely sane. Not only sane, he's the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. People who believe nonsense like this are usually put on Thorazine drips.

Bornography

I don't have a lot of time today -- although you may have noticed that I woke up extraordinarily early this morning, by accident really -- but there's so much happening with the GOP's ongoing lemming-like race toward the edge of Contraception Cliff, that I wanted to maybe touch on a couple of points quickly if I could.

1. Greg Sargent over at the Washington Post has an interesting piece up right now laying out the Republican case for why a fight over birth control is one worth having and isn't, in fact, a political and cultural third rail that's going to electrocute them, en masse, during an election year. According to GOP strategist Whit Aryes, the issue isn't about contraception but -- wait for it -- personal freedom. He says the key is to frame the fight, at least optics-wise, as being less about birth control for women and more about the government attempting to trample on religious liberties. For those who've been paying attention, Darrell Issa has made this same basic assertion when it comes to the supposed goal of his little "Very Religious Men" dog and pony show that happened on the Hill yesterday.

The problem with this tack, of course, is that it still lays out almost flawlessly both Republican hypocrisy and the reality of the conservative mindset, at least insofar as where the American right's priorities lie when it comes to which freedoms should be protected and which can be safely sacrificed. The translation of the Aryes/Issa model goes something like this, and there's really no other way around it: Safeguarding the right of people to adhere to the tenets of an ancient superstition and not to offend their magical sky spirit trumps the right of real-world women to control of their own bodies and to easy access to something that grants them safe and healthy reproductive freedom. While the Republicans are trying to cast it as a threat to religion by governmental intrusion, it can just as easily be viewed the other way around. And while both religion and, ostensibly, personal freedom is protected by the Constitution, sorry but we've reached a point in the history of this planet where the needs of the sky spirit should never be allowed to supersede the needs or even wants of people who can, you know, be proven to actually exist.

2. Once again on the ways that this fight tips the GOP's hand when it comes to how staggeringly out-of-touch its thinking is, Matt Osborne put together a pretty good little post on what he calls the "Grandiose Old Patriarchy." The salient quote:

"(Right-wing rhetoric) always poses a zero-sum proposition: if women control their means of reproduction, men are supposedly 'diminished' from their hallowed throne at the family godhead. A perceived loss of privilege always drives resentment politics. In this case, men’s privileges under the antiquated values of the 19th Century are supposedly at risk — which is hilarious, because those values are largely extinct in our culture, even among self-described conservatives. The 'war against religion,' as Darrell Issa defines it anyway, was already fought and lost decades ago. Second point: this is another lost cause being resurrected."

Meanwhile, Irin Carmon over at Salon dissects what Rick Santorum bankroller, Bayer aspirin advocate and crazy old white guy Foster Friess's recent comments say -- loudly and unequivocally -- about the Republican worldview (read: its arrogant patriarchy):

"It’s worth looking at what he said right before (the Bayer comment): 'I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex that I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are.' This is deeply ironic, and not just because Friess has chosen to back a candidate whose singular obsession with state regulation of sexual behavior has helped bring the more extreme stances of the anti-choice movement to the forefront. It bears repeating that Santorum said as recently as October, 'Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s OK, contraception is OK. It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.'"

And how are things "supposed to be?" Exactly the way Jesus the Magic Savior dictates. Never forget that.

3. If you've managed to get through most of the blustery right-wing rhetoric on birth control and what's best for women -- and remember, we're not talking about a minority group here, we're talking about half the population -- without getting sick all over the living room floor, there's this bit of conservative pseudo-intellectual masturbation: a "think piece" in the Daily Caller that attempts to get to the bottom of that whole woman problem by asking the troll-baiting question "What Are Women For?" It's ponderous and condescending pretend existentialist horseshit from beginning to end. Feel free to give it a look -- it's so Onion-like that it's not even worth an excerpt.

4. Finally, a standing-o for Carolyn Maloney and Eleanor Holmes Norton for asking the pertinent question about Darrell Issa's -- as Cesca called it -- "He Man Woman-Haters Club" hearing, then basically telling Issa where he can shove the whole thing. Maloney asked, "What I want to know is, where are the women?" of the all-male, all religious leader/scholar panel, not long before she and Norton got up and walked out.



Suck it, Issa. You smug prick.

Picture(s) of the Day

Two photos posted on Facebook: one of a billboard insinuating that kids raised without God are more likely to become killers -- and an entertaining response.


(via Simon Owens)

Faith No More

I'll try to make this quick, since as I said I'm kind of pressed for time right now.

Chances are by now you're aware of the fallout from last week's Values Voters Summit, the annual event in which the hard-right Evangelical nutjob segment of the electorate gathers to throw King James Bibles at the feet of Republican leaders to see who will be the last one standing after beating his or her competition to death with one. This year, everybody seemed to be gunning for one guy: Mitt Romney. Poor Mitt got it hard from both ends, so to speak, as his place on the speaking roster happened -- through what I'm sure was complete coincidence -- to fall between Dallas megachurch demagogue Pastor Robert Jeffress and psychopathic talk radio host Bryan Fischer, both of whom have railed against Romney's Mormon faith as an insult to the one, true God.

Jeffress, who astonishingly is the cuddlier of the two, merely referred to Mormonism as a cult while lavishing praise on Rick Perry for supposedly being a trustworthy follower of Jesus Christ; Fischer took it three or four giant steps further, saying not only that a proven Christian and a proven Christian alone should be our next president, but that Sharia law is coming to take over our courts, homosexuals are a threat to the public health and the reason we haven't seen a successful attack on the contiguous 48 since 9/11 is that crowds sing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch at major league baseball games. And no, I'm not making that last one up.

Romney, to his credit, tried to take the high road in his reaction to all the hyper-pious pummeling. Of course at something like the Values Voters Summit, the high road doesn't need to be very high; the Lincoln Tunnel towers over the discourse at this thing.

So is Mormonism a cult? Was it, for the most part, the brainchild of con-men and has it been perpetuated by the power-hungry and adhered to by the weak and desperate? Is it a lunatic belief system that should have no place influencing American politics? Yes on all counts. But here's the thing: That makes it no different than any other faith-based religion.

Fischer and Jeffress have always been despicably hateful fuckers whose opinions needed to be pushed so far to the fringes that they practically vanish into the ether. But at this point more than any other in our recent history, this country does not have the luxury to concern itself with with ridiculous contrivances like which ancient superstition a candidate aligns him or herself with -- whether he or she passes some religious purity test by properly genuflecting before the right god.

Over the next few months, as the campaign ramps up, you're going to start hearing a lot more proclamations of faith from those running for the highest office in the world. They'll talk about how their belief in Jesus or whatever-the-hell guides them, and what's more, they'll do it largely as a theatrical act of indulgence, as a means of cynically pandering to those they feel they need to pander to in order to get elected. Their command performance may not always be at the whim of blatant sociopaths like Jeffress and Fischer, but it will certainly be as a show of respect to the supposedly benign faith of which these men have become extremist purveyors and arbiters. And that faith, while something I disagree with wholeheartedly as a rational human being, should at the very least be a personal choice and a personal choice only -- it should be something that at all times is excluded from American politics.

At this fragile point in our nation's history, the fact that our presidential candidates will feel that they have the latitude, even for a moment, to gush metaphysical politics-as-usual platitudes is simply terrifying. Discussing something as abstract and ineffectual as faith at this moment is akin to extolling one's own favorite lottery numbers. Neither offers a concrete method of action. Faith will never defend this country's people from the ongoing threats to their livelihood. God won't save us from the mess we're currently in.

We need something more than wishful thinking, and we don't have the time to talk about anything less.


Above it's Chris Matthews taking apart an unbearably smug Pastor Robert Jeffress on Hardball last night.

Bend Over, This Is Gonna Hurt

Christwire: God Prepares To Strike New York with Hurricane Irene, Gay Marriage Laws To Blame/8.25.11

Sunday Sacrilege

It seems like every time a self-described conservative Christian candidate rises to a position of prominence within the public consciousness these days, various articles start popping up illuminating the truly insane depths of his or her already questionable belief system. While I really do think that no one who chooses ridiculous superstition over logic and reason in any part of his or her life should be allowed near the White House, it's simply a foregone conclusion that a profession of faith is a requirement for all political leaders in our current culture; you either make it clear that you believe in Jesus or you just don't stand a chance of ever becoming a political leader in America, circa 2011, in the first place.

While we should all prepare, now that campaign season is ramping up, for another offensive series of diversions from the real issues facing this country aimed at testing the purity of our candidates' religious devotion -- another CNN "Faith & Politics" forum, a command performance before Pastor Rick Warren, or some other such horseshit -- it'll be incumbent upon those for whom faith or prayer doesn't constitute an effective plan of action to keep fighting back as best we can. The bottom line is that we're once again faced with more than a couple of people vying for the highest office in the land who not only buy heavily into notions like magic, and fairy tales, and holy books, and end times prophecies, and various silly shibboleths, but who also believe that it's their divinely commissioned obligation to make sure the rest of us submit to it too -- whether we like it or not.

Screw that.

Salon: The Christian Right's "Dominionist" Strategy/8.21.11