Who is more backward?

I watched a TV show on YouTube Saturday night which had on ‘Aql al-Bahili, who is listed as a Saudi Arabian scholar on several sites, but I have not been able to ascertain that he is. He is a spokesperson for some faction in Saudi Arabia and seems to have the Saudi royal family’s blessing. In the video he makes a very passionate and articulate speech regarding one of the major weaknesses of Islam. Yet it is difficult to believe the royal family would have approved of his views, given their support of one of Islam’s most extreme factions, Wahhabism. ‘Aql al-Bahili was one of three men on the show, but I only heard the other two men shout as he spoke and their words were not translated. So I don’t know if they were agreeing with him or cursing him.

Here is what the TV show claims he said as shown in subtitles at the bottom: “I know and I acknowledge that there is freedom in the Koran. Many Koranic texts state that people are free. But when the political implementation of a certain ideology has failed to accomplish justice for over fourteen hundred years, whereas others [i.e. in the West] have managed to instate justice by means of a [different] political ideology, I believe that even though [Islamic justice] preceded them, this does not detract from the credit due to those who have reformed the path of human society, infusing it with freedom through an ideological platform other than Islam. Today, all the Islamists acknowledge that the freedom enjoyed in the West is a hundred times better than in the Islamic countries.”

He goes on to say that he “knows Islam is all-encompassing, our problem is that sacred texts are being cited by tyrants, by honorable people and by Islamists alike. Today we must adopt general principles by which human society abides: People must obtain their rights, public funds must not be plundered, a doorman may become a minister and a minister may become a doorman, people must have the right to be safe from attack, as well as the right to establish companies and political parties These are the principles of human societies on planet Earth.

Hearing him say that on a TV show that airs in the Middle East made me wonder if he wasn't a provocateur, a charlatan, or a disinformation agent put in front of the cameras to stir up trouble. I couldn't tell if he really meant it.

I sent the link to a family member who follows events in the Middle East, asked them to watch the video and then give me their thoughts via email. I didn't mention any of my doubts. After she watched it, she sent an email which stated, “The speakers point is true….in many key respects.

“Which ones?” I typed back.

“He admits the Muslim culture is years if not centuries behind the west. Nor do they have Western-style freedom.”

“Does that mean they have trouble functioning in a modern world?”

She thought that they contribute nothing to world dialogue, since all their wisdom was tied up in the false teachings of a book that dated back to the 7^th century.

Without pointing to the obvious similarities of Christians basing their lives on a 4^th century book, I typed back “That may be true but their most ardent believers, even thinking as seventh century men, can still fly 21^st century technology into the 20^th century high rise buildings and destroy them. Or strap 21^st century explosives to themselves and blow up dozens of people. Their backwardness is only because their mind is not free; it has been forced into the Muslim shoe box.”

She typed back, “One could also reasonably argue that enslavement to lusts, sins, obsessions, addictions etc. is not real freedom either.”

I typed back “?”

Her response, “The West has fostered the addictions and hedonism that are destroying us. It is the perversion and deliberate trashing of our Judeo-Christian value system which has resulted in such excesses and enslavements.”

“So Islam is right, even if stuck in the 7^th century, and many in the West are wrong and are just as enslaved…but it’s not due to what’s read in some book. It’s due to secular obsessions???”

I don’t think she understood my sarcasm, as she replied “God has a few surprises for them, when they try to build a world on the ashes of Judeo-Christianity. Jesus will see to that.”

I thought “This is how the Crusades started.” The discussion about a backward Middle Eastern religion had suddenly become confirmation about another backward Middle Eastern religion that had to be absolutely true, because my relative simply wanted it to be true. A dozen times I was tempted to put her email address on the screen and hit the delete button. She is still waiting to hear back from me.

American Sniper

I was at a salon recently having my hair trimmed when the stylist, in the midst of discussing how the cut would look, asked if I had seen the movie “American Sniper”. She was a white, middle-class, middle aged woman who didn’t appear to be the type who would like ‘war’ movies. Before I had a chance to answer, she said she had just seen it and thoroughly enjoyed it. The movie made her so proud to be an American, that the main character (Chris Kyle) was a real hero, and that we needed more like him. She added that she thought those who spoke out against the movie were un-American and were people who hated the U.S. in general and the American military in particular. I was waiting for her to call them communists or Muslim sympathizers, but she changed the subject when I responded that I hadn't seen it.

Nor do I intend to.

I had read Chris Kyle’s book and knew, based on what he said in his autobiography, that he was anything but heroic. He thought shooting people was fun and it was why he served four tours of duty in Iraq. The hair stylist talked about how brave Kyle was, how it showed what a family man he was because he missed his wife and children while serving overseas, and how the movie was an honest portrayal of a real American. Hogwash! That may have been in the movie, but that isn't what he wrote in his book.

Maybe he just ‘misremembered’ things, like NBC’s Brian Williams, but there were a lot of things Kyle lied about, not just in his book but also when he was interviewed on TV; his claim that he shot looters in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, his gunning down two men who attempted to car-jack him at a gas station outside Dallas, his made-up story about punching out former Governor Jesse Ventura in a San Diego bar, his phony dedication to his family as he related to why he wanted to go back to Iraq…(it wasn't because he wanted to serve his country. It was because killing savages was fun!) All were investigated, some even went to court, and found to be untrue. Based on what was in his book, I wondered what this woman found heroic about him. I didn't ask her though because it was clear any response that questioned the authenticity of the movie would upset her…and she had scissors in her hands.

But I was curious; would she consider the people who executed death row inmates heroic? They were killing people who seemingly deserved it, just like Kyle claimed he did, and they at least had the bravery to face those they killed. How about the Japanese soldiers who hid in caves or trees and shot American soldiers and marines wading ashore during the invasions of Japanese islands such as Okinawa or Iwo Jima, or Japanese-controlled islands like Peleliu or Tarawa, knowing they would be blasted out of their sniper’s hideout? What about the 19 men aboard the airliners hijacked on 9/11? Were their actions heroic, especially in light of the fact that they knew ahead of time they would die? What constitutes a hero? It certainly isn’t shooting people from a rooftop a half a mile away.

I went online and found several websites that reviewed movies. I chose eight of them that had watched American Sniper and had video reviews longer than five minutes. I also read six reviews of the movie. Those fourteen covered the spectrum; from a one star rating, or didn't like it, to five stars and loved it. Every one of them said the movie only follows the book in the broadest sense of the term; it leaves out key elements that were essential to the story line, and that the movie made Kyle look far more sympathetic and conflicted than he actually wrote in the book.

Warfare has been a lifelong interest of mine, because it is a human-caused disaster. Human beings make a choice to go to war and kill other human beings. Unlike a hurricane, earthquake or volcanic eruption, it’s something that could have been avoided. I study the reasons it was not, the methods used to kill the enemy, the campaigns, and the people who are drawn in and changed by it. Heroic things can happen in wartime, but killing people is not heroic. It is barbaric and, frankly, little more than government-sanctioned murder. One of my main areas of study is aerial combat and the pilots who served, especially in World War One. I am deeply interested in why they chose such an unusual, novel, and in many ways terrifying way to fight. But none of them are my heroes. Nothing they did was heroic. It was their job. The concept of the ace simply meant they were very, very good at their job of killing. Some men did show noble characteristics, such as French ace Georges Guynemer, who refused to shoot down German ace Ernst Udet when he saw his guns were jammed. Or Captain James McCudden of the RFC, who would not ambush an opponent. In hindsight, those traits were probably court-martialable because the point was to prevent the enemy from achieving any future success. But these men decided they would not let war turn them into cold-blooded killers just because it could.

Some of the savages Chris Kyle wanted to kill

Chris Kyle showed no such inclination. He reveled in killing, calling any Iraqi a ‘savage’, whether they were ones he was about to shoot or not. He relished the competition with other snipers and found it motivated him to kill even more. Not because the enemy was a threat, but because someone was getting close to his number of kills. It’s eerily similar to the two Japanese officers whose competition during the Rape of Nanking China in 1937-38 was covered by Japanese newspapers like it was a sports match. The two officers had a ‘friendly’ rivalry to be the first to behead 100 captured Chinese.

Is this the kind of soldier we are turning out anymore? This is the legacy that the hair stylist found so fantastically American and worthy of her adulation. But the ‘American Sniper’ is how we are now viewed around the world. Some may think that it’s good, for others to fear us because we might show up in their country and shoot their citizens from distant rooftops. I think what it is doing is making the old notion of the ‘ugly’ American even uglier, more dangerous, and an evil influence in the world. That’s not a nation or a legacy to be proud of.

Welcome to Mississippi: The Jesus State

Desperate times call for desperate measures, at least if you’re a bible-thumping Mississippi politician. When it appears no one is taking your religion seriously, rub it in everyone’s face by introducing legislation to make your holy book a permanent part of the state’s heritage.

A bill has been placed before Mississippi’s legislature to make the bible the state’s official book. Precisely which version has still not been determined. Will it be the Catholic, King James, Coptic, New Standard, Greek Orthodox, New International, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, or some other translation? This is an important point since you don’t want the people of the state reading the wrong account. As any True Christian ® will tell you, only their version is the right version, all others will lead you to hell, so this issue will need to be addressed.

Tom Miles and Mike Evans

One of the bill’s sponsors, Democratic State Representative Tom Miles, claims that the Bible “provides a good role model on how to treat people. They could read in there about love and compassion” which proves Representative Miles hasn’t read it yet, or is encouraging people to just cherry-pick from it. Does he mean the good role models provided by: God as he deals with Adam and Eve, Lot and his two daughters, Jehoram of Judah, King David, Abraham, Saul, or just about anybody in Deuteronomy? And that love and compassion business; is it the love shown for Jephthah’s daughter, Job’s family, the Amalekites, the Midianites, the Canaanites, the first-born of the Egyptians, all the children aged two and under in Palestine when Jesus is born, or everything down to the fish and insects in God’s worldwide flood? Nowhere does the bible say why every living thing was sentenced to death. What did the chinchillas do to piss God off? Neither love nor compassion seem high on God’s list.

But a bigger issue is, why pick the bible? Why immortalize a book that divides people and treats woman as property, a book that is laced with genocide, blood sacrifice, slavery, misogyny, fables, inaccuracies, and submission to a celestial tyrant?  And that’s just in the first two chapters. Why not choose William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Willie Morris’ My Mississippi, or Shelby Foote’s Follow Me Down? These writers were all born in the Magnolia State and their books drew heavily on their experiences of growing up there. Larry Wells, whose wife is a descendant of Faulkner, said of the bill, “It’s impossible to conceive of a state abandoning its literary heritage like that...what would Faulkner, Welty, Shelby Foote and Richard Wright think? I think they would collectively link arms and say, ‘Go back to kindergarten, Legislature.’” What an insidious thing to say…about kindergartners. They usually display greater common sense than these members of the state legislature. The bible was written by semi-literate men in a small area of the Middle East and was intended strictly for the Hebrew people. Very few of their descendants live in Mississippi, so it doesn’t make sense to propose the bible, unless you have a sneaky agenda to coerce people into following your religion.

In an effort to evade the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, the bill’s other sponsor, Democratic Representative Michael Evans says, "the bill doesn't force anyone to read it.” No one is forced to use U.S. currency which includes “In God We Trust” on it, but what alternative is there? Evans is more up front when he admits “the bill will encourage people to pick up the Bible.” Encourage. How long before encourage becomes compulsory? There’s the real reason people like him want it declared the ‘state book’. He wants everyone to remember him as Mississippi’s Numero-Uno-Christian and the guy who made recognition of his religion obligatory. Because what’s good for Mike Evans has to be good for the rest of the state, otherwise, why else would God have given him the idea to push this bill when it is clearly unconstitutional? The separation of church and state? Not in his state. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof? Mr. Evans or Miles would retort “Well, it ain’t a law now…see here…people’s jus’ ‘posed ta see the bible is highly regarded by people lahk me at the govumint level, an’ take it more serious-like, read it, an’ put it ta use in they’s lives.” I don’t live in that state, but I do have a bible, and I've found an excellent use for it.

There may be a bible in most Mississippi homes but few of the residents there have actually sat down and read all the way through it, even Mr. Miles and Mr. Evans. I would bet the people in Mississippi have read more of the Harry Potter series of books. They are much better reads, too.

Mississippi has been ranked as the most religious state in the country but it also ranks dead last of all 50 states and the District of Columbia…in areas such as health, educational attainment, seat belt use, and median household income. Is it any surprise? This idiotic bill isn't going to help Myth-iss-ippi-ans improve their reading rank either. They are listed last in that category too.

Cold-Cocking for Jesus

Nothing speaks to the veracity of religion better than a good, solid punch. Cold-cocking someone into having faith or as a way of getting them to question their non-belief is just what God wants. Otherwise, why would He have said in Exodus 21:19 that “the one who struck the blow will not be held liable if the other can get up and walk around outside with a staff…”. People are convinced of a supernatural being’s existence if someone bloodies their nose or sucker-punches them as proof.

Eric Dammann, a pastor at Bible Baptist Church in Hasbrouck Heights New Jersey, discovered a surprisingly successful knuckle-ministering technique. Last month his church posted a video of him bragging before his congregation about leading a young man to Christ by punching him in the chest “as hard as he could”. The video shows him demonstrating just what kind of blow he dished out on the unsuspecting youth, a short clip of which you can see at this YouTube address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu7o6l1YAt8

Seems while Eric was visiting a youth group in Calgary Canada years earlier he met Ben who he describes as a nice, bright kid, but a smart aleck, which in Eric’s mind made him dangerous. Throughout Eric’s proselytizing and preaching, the young man didn't seem to be taking “the Lord serious” [sic]. (What he meant was Ben wasn't taking him seriously.)This apparently enraged Eric because he said he then “walked over to him and went BAM, punched him in the chest as hard as I could. I crumpled the kid, I just crumpled him.” He then claims he leaned over the young man and said “Ben, when are you going to stop playing games with God?” (He meant stop playing games with him.) and this kid willingly converted right then and there.

I’m sure he did. I’ll bet Eric doesn’t think the kid did it out of, say, duress or to keep from being slugged again. Instead of God convincing the wayward youth, Eric decided it was up to him to show Ben that he may be a man of peace with the love of Jesus inside…it didn't extend to his fist. That’s where his God abided. And that God spoke to smart-alecky kids by being balled up and slammed into their chests. God loves a cheerful giver.

  I wonder what the kid's parents thought when they heard some American preacher came to their town and, in order to convert their son, he beat him to the ground. Hopefully, Pastor Dammann has a good lawyer in his congregation because he is going to need him now that he's admitted to child abuse.

I was surprised when researching this story that there have been numerous recent incidents of ministers who applied Eric's method in their own churches. They just didn't post anything on a webpage or on Facebook afterward. Many lawsuits have been filed as a result and there were several photographs of kids with split lips, swollen faces or black and blue marks on their chests, but none of the preacher-suspects used the opportunity to say they did it for God. Most admitted they just lost their temper.

  For me, this story was not a new one. In the 1950s and '60s my grandfather, a Disciples of Christ minister, preached about his youthful memories of a tall, brawny and very combative preacher who used to go into taverns, barrooms and hotels in West Virginia in the late 1800s and challenge men to a fight. He would then beat them senseless after eliciting a promise from them that, if he won, they had to attend services while he was at the local church or his tent revival was in town. Grandfather never seemed to grasp the irony of talking about Jesus who supposedly said ‘Turn the other cheek’, and then in the same sermon he all but gushed about this preacher slugging and pounding people until they were streaming blood, covered with bruises (and in some cases needing immediate medical attention), in order to get them to accept the preacher's religion. Jesus was always portrayed by my grandfather as the complete antithesis of this supposed man-of-God who was nothing more than a bully with a bible. Terrorists use fear as a way of achieving their aims, and fear was this preacher’s technique, but instead of using the fear of hell, he used the fear of his fist and another thrashing. I often wondered if grandfather secretly wished he could have put the fear of God into people the same way. It confirmed to me that fear is man-made...and religion is fear.

Road Rage Catches God off Guard

On November 11, 2014, a young woman in Houston Texas was shot while driving her car, another of those increasingly common road rage incidents. The surprise is, the gunman was an off duty Harris County Constable, Reserve Deputy Kenneth Caplan. The shooting took place when the 20 year old woman was in rush hour traffic on the 610 Loop south of the city. She told authorities that a car swerved over and cut her off, so she honked her horn, accelerated, and cut in front of him in retaliation. According to the report, the other driver then sped up, pulled alongside her, rolled down his window and pointed a gun.

“He was aiming at me,” she said. ”I thought he was just going to cuss me out. It didn’t register that I was going to get shot.” In the car with Caplan was an unidentified woman who leaned back so the Deputy could get a better bead on his target. Just as he pulled the trigger, the victim had a moment of lucidity and tilted her head to the right. Caplan’s bullet creased the left side of her head, leaving a deep groove. Stunned and bleeding, she stopped her car on the freeway and called 911. Several other drivers also called 911 with some reporting a description of Caplan’s vehicle as it sped away. Paramedics arrived and rushed the woman to the emergency room. Doctors at Memorial Hermann Hospital commented that she was lucky to be alive and that “this case is one in a million.”

Information led to the identification of Kenneth Caplan as the suspect. He is currently in jail with bond set at $200,000. It remains to be seen if he will be given paid time off or charged with attempted murder. No word on who was the female in the car with him, or if she’ll face any charges.

And then strangeness enters the picture. After being shot by a highway lunatic, after EMTs and doctors save her life, after surgeons at the hospital place eight staples in her scalp to close the wound and keep her for three days to make sure she would recover, she claims that God has given her a second chance…not the quick-responding emergency personnel, not the doctors, not a deputy with poor target acquisition skills…she appeals to the imaginary for still being on this side of the dirt. To me, adding God to this only makes things worse. This God pulls a couple of strings and spares her life by letting the bullet glance off her head instead of blowing it off, and she thinks this is okay? Why didn’t that entity just calm her so she wouldn’t have retaliated, or better yet, intervene so Caplan’s car doesn’t swerve and precipitate the whole incident? What kind of a God does she believe in? No benevolent being operates this way.

With an assumed second chance now granted, the young woman says she wants Caplan off the streets. “He tried to kill me,“ she said. “I’m worried that since he’s a cop, they’re going to let him off easy.”

                                               Close call

The victim requested anonymity while talking with reporters

Why doesn’t she refer the matter to God through prayer? If God is the reason for her second chance, maybe, once and for all, he can address the whole human penchant for road rage.

However, God might be planning to give Caplan a “second chance” too. The young woman is justified with her concern because Caplan has only been charged with “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.” One cynical observer noted Caplan’s defense will probably be “…’The noise from her horn startled me to the point where, when she cut me off, I feared for my life and was forced to engage’. At worst, he’ll get a short term suspension with pay, just you watch.” Conceivably, Caplan could walk, in which case, he may get a second chance to finish the job he started on November 11^th.

Notice any similarities to the Waffen SS?

I hope the cynical observer is wrong but this is the kind of treatment more and more Americans are experiencing when it comes to law enforcement. Police are now an extension of the military and are often no longer subject to the laws they are sworn to uphold. Possibly that’s all in God’s great plan. Law enforcement has His blessing to use us as targets whenever, wherever. Since most of us don’t wear a badge, we didn’t get the memo.

Why does the victim think God spared her?  Why, in his infinite wisdom, didn’t God just prevent it? Did this incident catch God off guard and all he could do was deflect the bullet at the last instant so she was only grazed by it? How was that done? Did god interfere with: 1. Caplan’s aim, 2. the bullet, 3. the young woman’s head movement, or 4. did He slow her car at the opportune time? God truly does work in mysterious ways if this is how the episode unfolded.

I would also like to ask her which God gave her that second chance. The Christian god isn't inclined to offer second chances (Look at how he deals with Adam and Eve, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and, supposedly, every living thing when He sends the great Flood.) so maybe she was calling on something we’re not familiar with. Only the young victim can clear this up.

Yes, she’s lucky to be alive, but it is no thanks to some invisible, celestial puppeteer.

Satan Goes to School

         The stupidity factor climbs higher in Central Florida. Thanks to our ever-vigilant religious fundamentalists and their demands on area learning institutions, the administration for the Orange County Public Schools is entertaining the idea of distributing material promoting Satanism. The schools previously allowed bibles and books promoting Christianity to be passed around, and the chickens have now come home to roost. I think it’s ridiculous to counter one mythology with another but I understand why the Satanic Temple is doing it. If Christianity is allowed, then why not that religion’s nemesis, since he is a necessary part of that mythology. Showing an astounding degree of ignorance, the mother of one student huffed “This only proves why we need God back in our schools.” She means Jehovah, the Christian god…the only god allowed in schools.

          Ah, Christian outrage. Where would we be without it? All this fuss was generated when the Satanic Temple submitted a coloring book and two fact sheets regarding Satanism to the Orange County School Board to hand out to Elementary School students starting in January 2015. There is nothing spellbinding in it. The book looks like the kind of stuff that would appeal to any 5 to 8 year old. These are typical pages.

Nothing evil or revolting. Only the emblems give any hint regarding Satanism.

But fundamentalists think its influence will create this kind of child.

      It should never have come to this. Our schools are meant for learning, not proselytizing. If you want your kids to learn about religion, take them to church. But don't force the mystical and supernatural on the schools.
Christians don’t like it but this is a secular country, and as such, the kids are to be free of religious influence in public school teaching. But many faith-based organizations feel that’s just a small road bump that they are commanded to ignore, jump over, or break down. The head of the Florida Family Policy Council openly told the Orlando Sentinel that their Bible-distribution program in the school is intended "as a way to expose children to Christianity" in hopes that it will "lead to a fundamental change in the condition of a student's heart." God can’t do it by, say, answering a prayer, or just placing the desire in children’s minds. He is so inept and weak; he must call on imperfect and admittedly wicked humans to present his case and hope the kids will crack open His holy book. This is where the Satanists saw an opening. The Satanists are simply saying, if there's religious heart-changing allowed in public schools, all religious heart-changers should get an equal shot at the students: "If our materials are consistent with their standards, they can't simply deny our literature because of its religious viewpoint," said a Satanic Temple spokesman.

Guess which book contains more violence and divisiveness?     
     

                If the Satanists succeed, expect to see Islamic groups submitting the Koran and Muslim information next, followed by the Mormons, the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, and eventually documents about Native American beliefs. They all have just as much right. It will take up the entire school day just to name all the different religions and the various factions of each.

     So that mother who was upset over the Satanic Temple handing out material better be prepared for a religious rush on the area schools. This is the end result of ignoring the Constitutional separation of church and state. 

     How about you? Do you want today’s school kids to waste any more time on religion and NOT learn science, math, history, reading, biology, spelling, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography, social studies…etc.?  

     One particular response was so stunning, I quote it in full: “These monsters peddling their book full of murder, incest, human bondage and exploitation to school children must be stopped. It's a good thing that the Satanists are doing something about it.”

Will Gay Marriage Now Lead to Sex With Ducks?

             On October 6, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to let stand several state rulings that allow gay people to marry. Fundamentalists immediately challenged the decision. Their bible states that what gays do is an abomination and their wickedness should not be rewarded by permitting them to marry. Many of the faithful are asking why the justices are mocking their religion. After all, this is a Christian nation (It is, just ask them), and as such, they should be free to continue pushing their intolerance on our society for the foreseeable future. As Pat Robertson of the 700 Club said, if homosexuals are allowed to marry, it’s a slippery slope where people will be then be able to engage in any perversion.

Garfunkel & Oates sum it up succinctly in "Sex with Ducks"

Gay marriage makes Christians angry. Sure, children are dying from a variety of diseases around the world, like AIDS, Ebola and West Nile Virus. Yes, people are being killed by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and religious extremists in Africa and the Middle East. Mothers even have to explain to their seven year olds what to do if a gunman begins shooting up their school. But those are just inconveniences when compared to two people of the same sex wanting to profess their love for each other and marry. In that case, Christians must prevent it at all costs.

Why is it that Jesus never spoke a word about homosexuality?

    

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called the court’s decision “tragic and indefensible.” Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association said it was “unconscionable, unconstitutional, and un-American.” In other words, how dare the justices give gay people the same rights as homophobic, religiously dogmatic, prejudiced Americans? What good is being in the majority if Christians can’t use that power against those they don't like...especially when it involves an issue where they claim the right to interfere - the sex lives of gays?

Notice how each is cheapened by the other.

And why all this fuss? Because Christians believe same-sex marriages will devalue traditional marriage, just like when they order a Big Mac and someone else orders the Filet-o-Fish sandwich. It devalues their choice of the hamburger. Sandwich selection is a choice, just like sexual orientation. After all, non-gays remember when they chose to be heterosexual. It’s similar to when everyone chose their race. That’s why for centuries white Christians railed against inter-racial marriage. If god had meant for the races to sexually mingle, he’d have made us all choose one color. Caucasians were the dominant race for over three hundred years in this country and that was not to be diluted, or polluted, by mixing with a different skin pigment.

      The intolerance and lunacy hasn't changed - only the target.

One anti-gay marriage activist wrote,"Admittedly, society's interest in marriages that do not produce children is less than its interest in marriages that result in the reproduction of the species. However, we still recognize childless marriages because it would be an invasion of a heterosexual couple's privacy to require that they prove their intent or ability to bear children." Invading the privacy of a homosexual couple however, is justified because they cannot bear children via their sexual relationship, so any recognition of their commitment should be withheld, and it is why Christians have a 'heightened interest' in preventing gay marriage.

Christians claim they will be forced, through silence or tolerance, to condone what they view as an attack on the 'natural order of things', especially biblical morality. Biblical morality is an oxymoron because the bible calls for gays to be put to death - as Leviticus 20:13 says - even though gays have harmed no one. Christians are also commanded to kill (usually by stoning) anyone who claims to be a witch, worships another god, or picks up sticks on the Sabbath. Frankly, I don't think there are enough stones in the world.

Everybody must get stoned!

Claiming that someone's marriage defiles your religion is like slapping someone for eating a donut because you're on a diet. Considering all the malevolence that exists in the world, the fact that a religion condemns two people loving each other proves just how evil religion is.

It’s simple enough; if you don’t like gay marriage…don’t get one.

You WILL believe. It's in the Constitution

Speaking before about 400 students and faculty at Colorado Christian University this past Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that secularists are wrong when they argue the Constitution requires religious references to be removed from the public square. He opined that a battle is underway over whether to allow religion in public life, from referencing God in the Pledge of Allegiance, to holding prayers at school events and town hall meetings. “I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over non-religion.” Scalia said.

           …and yet the First Amendment clearly states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Where does it indicate favoritism towards religion? That a jurist on the Supreme Court can misinterpret the meaning is astounding! 

Antonin Scalia conjures up a whole new interpretation

Alright, let’s take Scalia at his word, that he really believes the First Amendment actually favors religion over non-religion. Which religion does it favor? There is not just one religion, so if we are to believe he means it, which religious faith is the one that guides us? Scalia is a professed Catholic, so should it be Roman Catholicism that is the moral compass and guiding light of our nation? Most Pentecostals, Baptists and Mormons will vehemently disagree with that idea. Should the Jews and Muslims be left out of Constitutional protection, or is it extended to them because they at least believe in some sort of supernatural entity?

                                     Whose altar do we bow before?

Scalia continued, “We do Him honor in our Pledge of Allegiance, in all our public ceremonies. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is in the best of American traditions, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I think we have to fight that tendency of the secularists to impose it on all of us through the Constitution” meaning that in the past, secularists simply wanted the Constitution upheld. But no more. Upholding the Constitution has changed under his judicial guidance. It means the government is now free to impose religion, ill-defined though it may be, on all of us.

Justice Scalia suggests that we already acknowledge god in our pledge of allegiance, which is an odd position for him to take since during his school years the phrase ‘under God’ wasn't even in it. If we are one nation under god, which one do we stand under…Amon Ra, Wotan, Kulkukan, Zeus, Brahma, Quetzalcoatl, or The Great Spirit? It can’t just be the gods that Europeans brought over when they wrestled the American continents away from the original inhabitants. The native’s various deities were sacred and revered before the immigrants arrived, so those gods should be included in those we stand beneath. And it was only a year ago that Scalia admitted that he believed the devil was a real being, so he apparently recognizes Satanism as legitimate. Wouldn't it be logical then to include Satan as worthy of worship since Satanism is recognized as a religion?

Americas list of gods to worship continues to grow

Freedom of religion means the freedom not to worship at all. People can do what they like as long as they allow others to do the same without forcing it on anyone. Thanks to Scalia, we may have 'freedom of religion' re-interpreted as ‘we have to worship some god…but we have the freedom to choose which one.’ If the government gets to impose a religion on us, what happens if it turns out to be, say, the "Christianity" as practiced by Westboro Baptist Church? Would Antonin Scalia use the power of the court to force all Americans to adhere to Westboro’s concept of what god wants? In which case, who is going to protect us from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia?