Hyperbole Watch--Alain's Newsletter

I've received this e-flash from Alain's Newsletter dated 10/21/06. Alain's Newsletter takes a militant fundamentalist Christian approach to political issues.

The item:

>>>Sexual orientation is flexible, right?

Marriage - I want to marry three men, six women, four children (ages ranging from seven to ten), two dogs and a mule. And I want insurance and benefits for all of them. You do not like it, hate crime!!! Go to jail, get fined.

Let me say first that even as a self-confessed liberal, I also have many libertarian sympathies; thus I want to note that I often respectfully differ with some of my liberal counterparts about the size and scope of government, but not in this case. I hope you will take this into consideration as I address Alain's hyperbole.

What Alain (and who is this mysterious Alain fellow, anyway?) has overlooked in his headlong plunge down the slippery slope is that we in America require people to give informed consent prior to entering into a marriage (or marriage-type relationship). I was asked "do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband" at my marriage ceremony--weren't you?? (For males at this time, "woman" and "wife" are of course the operative words.)

We should keep that requirement in place.

We also have laws on the books which address potential sexual contact with minors. The reason we have those laws is that We The People believe--and rightly so--that children aren't mature enough to physically accommodate or emotionally cope with sexual relationships, and there are firm scientific foundations for these premises. Thus, we deem children *legally* incapable of giving informed consent to participate in such relationships and give children legal protection. Our American laws which make it a criminal offense for adults to have sexual contact with minors are GOOD LAWS which should remain firmly in place, and should even be strengthened wherever possible.

IMO, the same types of laws that protect children from predatory sexual practices should also apply to non-human creatures. Beings of another species are simply not capable of granting informed consent to such relationships.

I would like to point out to Alain that the Bible places no prohibition on the age limit at which a male may have sexual contact with a female. Thus, Alain, why aren't you standing up to make *heterosexual* pedophilia legal?? Because you know it's wrong. Even though the Bible doesn't say it's wrong, other sources inform you that it's wrong, and you choose (thankfully) to believe them. But since you don't use the Bible as *your* sole source of legal authority, why do you favor forcing others to do so?

In another example, the Bible does not speak out against polygamy until New Testament times; thus, we have some fundamentalist Mormons giving the Old Testament authority in that area of their lives. Christians do this, too, in other matters (especially sexual matters).

While Christian conservatives are determined to have the Bible be the sole source of American laws, the reader will note that the Bible is sorely lacking in actual rhetoric which offers women--half the population!--protection from predatory sexual practices.

We need to grow up as a species and take responsibility for the laws we make. We need to stop passing the buck to an absent god.

As so many of us have seen, that "god" is not the fair and just being that so many of his followers make him out to be.

Christian Right Demands Access to Private School Kids

Today, RightMarch.com sent me an email about how troubled they are that a teacher at a high school in Pennsylvania refused to give anti-choice protesters access to students during a social sciences class field trip to a Planned Parenthood office.

Says RightMarch:

More than a dozen teenagers from the Solebury School in New Hope, PA, were bused to the local Planned Parenthood clinic where they spent several hours inside the clinic, and even donned the bright orange vests worn by pro-abortion "escorts" who meet and accompany women coming for abortions.

The email went on to rail against liberals in general and they even went to the extent of asking their readers to contact the school and complain about the anti-choice protesters not being given access to the children!

The Solebury School is a secular, private, college-prep school located in New Hope, PA. That's in Bucks County, PA, a wealthy exurb of Philadelphia that voted a Democratic majority (51% vs. 48%) in the 2004 presidential election.

The social sciences teacher supervising the field trip refused to give the anti-choice protesters access to the students, whereupon RightMarch complains that kids "were only allowed to hear one side of the story."

Something that immediately caught my eye is how RightMarch uses a propagandistic term--"bused"--to describe how the students were transported to the clinic. Not only does their particular use of the term carry negative civil rights connotations to play on the emotions of their conservative readers, it also seems almost to suggest that the students were taken there against their will.

(I guess it didn't occur to them that here in Greenville, for example, Bob Jones students get "bused" to the mall and various other places on a regular basis.)

If field trips are still the same as when I was growing up in the '70s, your parents had to be advised about what the field trip would consist of, then sign a permission slip and return it to the school. I would surmise that encounters with anti-choice protesters were not authorized by the parents as being part of the field trip. If a minor was physically injured or emotionally damaged as a result of the unauthorized encounter with the anti-choice protesters, the school and the teacher could have been exposed to legal liability. So the teacher did the right thing by not allowing the anti-choice protesters to have unauthorized access to the kids that were under his supervision.

To add insult to injury, RightMarch has called on its supporters to contact the school and bombard them with complaints about the teacher not allowing the anti-choice protesters to have access to the kids. They're also encouraging their supporters to send "Letters to the Editor" to newspapers papers all across the US protesting their lack of access to the schoolkids.

RightMarch: We've set up our website so that you can send your own personal comment to Solebury School Headmaster John Brown, AND to teacher Jason Gordon, regarding this issue. You can even copy your letter to the editor of the local newspaper. (We've deliberately left the letter blank, so that you can put your OWN WORDS into your demand for equal rights for conservatives at school.) Click below NOW to send your FREE message -- be courteous, no bad language please:

("No bad language please"? I thought these were Christians! LOL.)

The big lie here, the prideful presumption, is RightMarch's arrogant attitude of "entitlement"--thinking that by virtue of their own perceived holiness and perceived righteousness, they should have been given access, without the parents' knowledge, to students who attend a secular private school.

Dick in the Doghouse

On 9/28/06, Focus on the Family's Citizen Link verbally flogged arch-conservative Dick Armey for the following (quoted from the Citizen Link e-update):

In the interview, Armey responded pointedly when Sager asked why he thought Christian conservatives seemed more powerful now than in the 1990s.

"To a large extent, because Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies," Armey said. "I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There's a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools. Demagoguery doesn't work unless it's dumb . . . These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a large demographic."

Dick Armey said that?! LOL.

Jim Daly, the president of Focus on the Family Action[TM] responded:

"Values voters expect to hear such cruel insults from the Left," he said, "but not from a champion of family values, as Mr. Armey once claimed to be."

"Cruel insults from the Left?" Mr. Daly, you are a frickin' whiny baby. And can't you people even keep your story straight? Are liberals wimpy, spineless, and ineffectual, or are they cruel insult slingers, such that they have the immense power to "huwwt yur wittle feewings"??? Sorry, you folks on the Right DON'T get to have it both ways--pick one myth and stick to it. No flip-flopping! :-D

Anyway, back to Armey... the email goes on to paint James Dobson as a poor put-upon victim of Big Bully Dick, noting that he [Dobson] "takes the hits and bullets for all of us," Souder said. "[Dobson] becomes the easy punching bag. And when someone sees trends changing or they want to pick on somebody, by Dr. Dobson becoming a public figure and taking the lead, he will get the criticism, but he's really taking it for everybody."

(Why, how noble of you, Dr. Dobson! I will send you a check today, right away!)

Pete Winn, the author of this email update, then pulls an interesting manipulation out of his fundie bag of tricks: he insults Armey in a very specific manner, calling him "bitter." This one is familiar to quite a few of us post-Christians. Apparently, it seems that Armey is "just bitter" that Christian conservatives chose to support former Representative Steve Largent (R-OK) for a House leadership post, instead of Armey.

Winn then went to Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) for a quote. Coburn obliged, stating Armey has no business expressing such an opinion. This, in spite of the fact that the U.S. is still--at least ostensibly--a free country.

Winn then threw Terri Schiavo into the stew, offering the observation that "Coburn took special exception to comments Armey made accusing Dobson of supposedly pressuring Congress in 2005 to pass legislation trying to protect Terri Schiavo from being starved and dehydrated to death."

Coburn, a strong conservative lawmaker as well as a licensed physician, rejected the charge.

(Oh, my. Tom Coburn is SO credible. A senator AND a doctor! His mom must be pleased as punch. And surely a senator AND a doctor NEVER EVER lie or NEVER EVER act in his own self-interest. Why, he sounds almost godlike, doesn't he?) :-)

But elsewhere in the email, Coburn states, "Dr. Dobson has done more to advance the cause of moral excellence [his definition of it, anyway] than anybody I know in this country."

THEN, Coburn was quoted as saying, "Dr. Dobson didn't force anything to happen here," he said. "The fact is, men of conscience and women of conscience in the Senate felt this was a situation that ought to be addressed — and they took action."

I'm confused. Dobson apparently works hard to "advance the cause of moral excellence", but OTOH, Dobson "didn't force anything to happen here (in the Schiavo matter)."

It all happened by magic, of course.

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A couple of recent and notable news items suggesting additional rifts on the Right, and about Republicans were losing their grip in Washington are these: a main story in Time magazine, and David Kuo speaking about how Bush's "Faith-Based Initiatives" were a total sham.

Nope, I don't have time for Michelle Malkin

[Sigh]... there just wouldn't be enough time in the day for me to blog about Michelle Malkin, so here's a link to someone who's committed to that hazardous duty!

Malkin(s)Watch

Christian Group a "Front Group for Democrats"?

On 9/26/06, Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition saw fit to inform me that I should watch out for some terrible wolves in sheep's clothing, the "Red Letter Christians" (RLCs).

Sheldon apparently deems it downright heretical that Christians should actually try to apply themselves to doing what Jesus said. That is absolutely priceless.

I actually don't care a whit about what the "Red Letter Christians" hope to achieve--what's really annoying about this item was Sheldon's assertion that the RLC's are "a front group for Democrats"... as if to suggest, in contrast, that the Traditional Values Coalition and other Christian political activist groups are not front groups for Republicans. ROTFLMAO!

Sheldon pronounces the RLCs to be "pseudo-evangelical" posers, and offers us his own personal definition of the word evangelical: "True Evangelicals believe that the Bible -- each word, each sentence -- is the Word of God. This is how you can tell the difference between these pseudo-evangelicals and true Evangelicals."

However, when I looked up the word evangelical, I actually found information that showing that Sheldon's personal definition is almost the exact oppositeof what the dictionary says the word means.

The only listed definition that I might argue cleaves to Sheldon's idea of what "evangelical" means is this one, and it was fourth in a list of four definitions: "marked by ardent or zealous enthusiasm for a cause." (Courtesy WordNet.com... note, don't confuse it with WorldNet!)

What Sheldon calls an "evangelical," I call a "fundamentalist." In my personal experience, fundamentalists describe themselves as being the Christians who take the Bible completely literally--that is, "each word, each sentence [of the Bible] -- is the word of God." I have no argument with Sheldon there--I suspect he'd call a fundamentalist the same thing. But a fundamentalist and an evangelical are not the same thing, by dictionary definition. Rev. Sheldon needs to get himself in line with the dictionary. Words already do have established meanings, after all. (But oh, I forgot... to the fundamentalists among us, education is a "liberal" pursuit. Horrors!)

Clearly, Rev. Sheldon doesn't think liberal Christians are capable of being zealous for Christ, or sold out for Christ... but if you want to do what your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says by paying special attention to the "red letter" parts of the Bible, doesn't that argue that the RLCs are *more* zealous *for Christ* than folks like Sheldon? What I've observed is that Christian fundamentalists are far more zealous about the *Old* Testament than they are about the New Testament. And if you're going to be a *Christian*--i.e., someone who follows *Christ*--it seems to me the RLCs, not the Lou Sheldons of this world, are the ones who've got it right!

Does Jehovah give you golden points if you're zealous for the wrong thing(s)??? I suspect not. If Sheldon really loves Jesus, he'd better fall in line behind the RLCs.

Christians have spent most of their time since the first century fighting with each other about who among themselves is for real and who is a fake. The last church I attended before leaving Christianity altogether in the mid-1990s was real big on that--they believed that if someone didn't belong to *their denomination*, those others weren't real Christians. And my last denomination was small--it had around 90,000 members worldwide, at the height of its popularity. (Well, Jesus did say--in red letters--that the way is narrow, didn't he?!)

Sheldon's assertion would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic and desperate.

But LOL, I welcome *anything* that gets conservative activist Christians to take their eyes off the political ball.

Ten Commandments Monument Issues

Catching up... this item references an ACLJ e-newsflash that I received on 9/26/06, titled: Ban the Ten Commandments? What's Next?

The ACLJ has seen fit to warn me:

Your freedom to express your faith is under renewed attack by the ACLU.

Its apparent mission: to wipe any trace of religion off the face of government property and the public square in America.

The newsflash details several court cases that the ACLJ is working on right now pertaining to Ten Commandments monuments:

A Kentucky case, ACLU vs. Garrard County, KY: the Sixth Circuit Court says (according to ACLJ), "that in a similar (uncited) case last fall, the Sixth Circuit ruled in our favor. The court found in favor of our argument and noted that the ACLU's ''repeated reference to 'the separation of church and state''' was ''tiresome''... The Sixth Circuit Court determined, 'The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.'"

Well, that's just frickin' great. Some conservative activist judges find it "tiresome" to talk about church/state separation. This is appalling, incredibly arrogant, and frightening.

While the language of the First Amendment is not "demanding," (as, say, a toddler at the grocery store who wants a lollipop is "demanding")--the words seem pretty clear to me. And if we have a question about them, we can reference Thomas Jefferson's actual letter, written in 1801, to the Danbury Baptist Association--wherein Jefferson references the First Amendment to *support* his belief that the Constitution *does* "demand" a "wall of separation between church and state!

If I have to choose between the Sixth Circuit Court or Thomas Jefferson... uh, I'll take Jefferson.

The e-newsflash goes on to reference a couple of other Utah cases where New Age groups are either trying to get equal access for their monuments, or fighting against "sleight of hand" by Judeo-Christian interests trying to keep Ten Commandments monuments from going away.

I've been wondering something for quite a while: why don't we see Ten Commandments monuments on the front lawns of every Christian church in the United States? They could put up their monuments *there*, tons of people would see them as they drove by every day, and (though I would find the monuments annoying, personally) nobody could say a darn thing about it!

I guess the Christians in those churches are just too cheap to pay for the monuments themselves, out of pocket... but seemingly, in their view, it's all right to use our tax money for them.

That's just sooooo conservative, isn't it.

Air America Bankruptcy

Well, I have a bad head cold this weekend, so I'm going to try to catch up on my blogging instead of going to Fall for Greenville. (Ugh.) I also have a funeral to attend this weekend. (Double ugh.)

This item about Air America Radio (AAR)--that they are filing bankruptcy--came onto my radar today and I want to say a little about it.

The only way we in Upstate SC could listen to AAR on a regular basis (those of us without satellite radio, I mean) is by streaming it to our computers. Once in a blue moon, I did so at night or on a weekend day, when I wasn't otherwise busy. I'd have liked very much to be able to listen to it over the airwaves during the workday--especially to hear the terrific Thom Hartmann.

Though I wasn't able to listen much, I'm familiar with a number of the folks whose shows AAR syndicated. And that's what AAR was, really--a network that, while having some of its own original programming, also syndicated a number of the already-popular liberal talk shows. Much of the *really high-quality* liberal content on Air America was, IMO, produced by others and was merely syndicated TO AAR. And that content will continue to air through other venues elsewhere, just as it always has. I'm talking about folks like Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller, the fantastic Mike Malloy (who is Georgia-based and who, LOL, actually *got himself fired* from AAR), Laura Flanders, and the aforementioned Thom Hartmann.

I certainly hope Rachel Maddow lands on her feet--she is reputed to be one of the best and brightest of the liberal talkers, even to the point of having caught the attention of the turdish Rush Limbaugh.

I will say right out, I'm one who doesn't like entertainers talking about politics, unless they have some "street cred." Bruce Springsteen is a pretty good example of an entertainer who does.

But to me, folks like Jerry Springer, Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo (and I have liked *all* her movies, let me say) ... they seemed more like conservatives' wet-dream caricatures of liberals... again, just my NSHO. Randi Rhodes is extremely well informed, and I commend her for that, but her style can be somewhat caricaturish also. I don't think we benefit from having comedy caricatures on liberal radio... we need "real people" (not the rich and the rarefied) being funny and talking about real problems and real solutions. People like me, actually. :-) LOL.

I read some of the blog entries at AAR about its bankruptcy, and clearly, some conservatives are elated about this. But I do owe thanks to a conservative blogger (The Random Yak) for helping me put into words a certain idea I've had about AAR for a long time.

The Yak calls AAR "a donation-based political campaign masquerading as an income-generating business." Though the rest of Yak's observations about AAR were either outright lies or garden-variety conservative tripe, that one phrase really helped me out.

I suspect AAR was an income-generating business masquerading as a liberal network. Even from the early days of AAR, there was so much focus on funding... obviously Soros (LOL, isn't he the only liberal financier around these days?) didn't think AAR was a good investment, and my observations about syndication above support that idea. Heck, *I* wouldn't underwrite someone doing *anything* if I thought they were just in it for the money... how stupid would that be?

Anyway, thanks for helping me out with that, Yak... sort of... ya big jerk. :-)

So, I'm not sorry to see AAR go away (if, in the end, that's what happens). I think it will free up some terrific talent and resources to go elsewhere and that really, this was needed.