Wikipedia list of Christian evangelist sex scandals 1920-present.
(P.S., is it my imagination, or does Jesus totally look like the guy on the Zig-Zag Papers in this picture?)
Tag fundamentalist wackos
A Whole New Spin On The Phrase “Bully Pulpit”
There’s been some concern that the election of Barack Obama would send the right-wing fundie wack-job crowd (a.k.a. Sarah Palin voters) over the edge and trigger off a wave of violence. Indeed, right here in Massachusetts, on the day after the election, a black church in Springfield was deliberately set on fire and local officials have termed it a likely hate crime. Many news outlets are reporting a huge surge in the sale of automatic weapons, especially in “red” communities. The Secret Service has reported a marked increase in threats against Barack Obama’s life and says they may be attributable to the effect of those Sarah Palin campaign rallies. And earlier this week there was a story from the college town of Rexburg, Idaho, where a bus-load of school children were seen and heard chanting for the assassination of Barack Obama.
But who would have expected that among those spreading the hate would be Catholic priests?
One priest, Father Jay Scott Newman of Greenville, SC has told his parishioners that they’d better not stand up to receive Holy Communion in his church if they voted for Obama. He even posted this in an open letter to his parish on the church’s website.
Another priest, Father Sebastian Mayer of Fairfield, CA, publicly humiliated one of his parishioners in front of the assembled congregation at Mass for having Obama campaign signs on her vehicle, which was parked in the church parking lot. Then, on Wednesday morning, when contacted by a newspaper reporter about the story, the priest became verbally and physically abusive with the reporter.
Niiiiiiiiiice.
Oh, wait, I just remembered who would be all for this kind of bullying behavior from his minions…
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News From Home
Like a lot of other mostly-rural states, Maine is crammed to the gills with religious nutjobs. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting some Jesus freak, even in the bigger towns, like the one where I grew up. I attribute it to a mixture of generational poverty, rural suspicion of education, a higher-than-usual percentage of inbreeding, and too much Allen’s Coffee Brandy. And that doesn’t even include the Catholics!
But I digress. This post at BoingBoing pulls together a bunch of links about a resident of Lewiston named JoAn Karkos, who decided that it was her God-given prerogative to remove a book she didn’t like from the public libraries in both Lewiston and Auburn by checking them out and not returning them. The book — It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health — offended her Christian sensibilities because it had nekkid pitchers in it and talked about homos. And we all know Jesus HATES the homos.
Last week, she even had to go to court and risk jail time, but at the last minute the Lewiston City Manager stepped in and said that the city would not file the papers necessary to prosecute her for contempt of court.. How’s that for savvy political maneuvering, eh? If Sarah Palin doesn’t work out, maybe McCain can draft him — he certainly has more experience.
That last link has several links to earlier stories about the Cranky Old Lady and the Naughty Book if you’re interested. In the end, she got to keep the books, and the two libraries just bought new copies, so I guess everyone is happy.
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News You May Have Missed
A few dispatches for those of you who have been out of the loop recently:
An important civic leader known for his crusading against immorality was caught up in a shocking prostitution scandal this week: apparently Client #10 is the police chief of Tehran, who was reportedly nabbed in flagrante delicto with six…count ‘em, six…prostitutes. Somehow I don’t think a simple resignation is going to get this guy off the hook.
While we were all busy watching Clinton and Obama hack and slash at each other, Dennis Kucinich managed to fend off the four other Democrats running against him in the primary contest for his seat, scoring a large enough majority to avoid a run-off. So did Ron Paul. And there is now a second Muslim in the House of Representatitves: Democrat Andre Carson won the special election to fill the seat that was vacated when his mother passed away a couple of months ago. Sorry Rush and Hillary, Barack Obama is NOT the other one. Also flying under the radar was the news that a Democrat won the Illinois Congressional seat vacated by former speaker Dennis Hastert.
The Pentagon would like you to know that they’ve concluded that there were absolutely NO ties between Saddam Hussein’s government and Al Quaeda. However, the White House would prefer that you didn’t know that. After all, if Saddam didn’t have WMDs, and he wasn’t working with Al Quaeda, then what the fuck have we spent $3 trillion dollars for?
If you’re a kid attending school in Oklahoma, pretty soon you can ace every exam from here on out just by saying “Jesus did it.” The Oklahoma legislature will vote on a bill that will allow students to express their religious viewpoints without being penalized in class, on homework, or in any other way. Of course, as Phil at Bad Astronomy Blog points out, that applies to everyone, not just Christians, so if you’re a Pastafarian you can credit the Flying Spaghetti Monster without fear of summer school, too. The Texas legislature is considering a similar meaure.
And that’s the way it is….
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Brains The Size Of A Nano-Tube
Science Daily reports that a new survey by a group at University of Wisconsin found that 70% of Americans consider nanotechnology research to be “morally objectionable”. And it’s not because they’re too stupid to know the difference between nanotech and biotechnology research such as stem-cell work or cloning:
The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits.
“They still oppose it,” he says. “They are rejecting it based on religious beliefs. The issue isn’t about informing these people. They are informed.”
Time to go smack my head against the wall for a while.
There are valid reasons to have qualms about nanotechnology. Many safety concerns remain unaddressed, and quite a bit is still not known about how the small scale of the chemical changes being made actually impacts the properties and behaviors of materials (although I did read recently that a new study shows that nanotubes are not toxic to mice). But being opposed to this sort of research because your giant invisible grandpa wouldn’t like it is just plain stupid.
Our national tradition of anti-intellectualism is starting to get in the way of keeping things running. Last week in Salon, Laura Miller wrote about Susan Jacoby’s new book “The Age Of American Unreason” and Jacoby’s claim that fundamentalist religion in the United States is directly responsible for what Jacoby calls “junk thought”, epitomized by the “intelligent design” debate. Erich Vieth, posting at Dangerous Intersection, also writes about Jacoby, pointing out some factoids which should sound familiar to people reading here: 50% of Americans do not believe in evolution, 50% of Americans believe in ghosts, 15% of Americans do not know that the Earth revolves around the sun.
Stupidity and religious faith walk hand in hand. We’ve got a Presidential candidate who will pray to end the budget deficit, schools that pray for good grades for their kids, people who believe in miracles, and a President who says God tells him to start wars. I’ve had people ask me why I can’t just “live and let live” with regard to fundamentalists, and all I have to say is that it’s because these people imperil us all with their appalling combination of stupidity and willful ignorance. I can’t write this sort of stuff off with a blithe “oh, ha ha, silly fundies” anymore because they are contributing directly to the rapid demise of not just social and political institutions but of enlightened civilization itself. And they don’t care, because, in their world-view, they’re all going to fucking Disneyland when the Apocalypse comes.
You can’t make people who are willfully and deliberately opposed to knowledge and reason turn around and accept those things by sheer force of will. I’ve mentioned Nietsche’s words before: “Faith means not wanting to know what is true.” And consequently nothing will stop them, not even acceptance. Maybe through resistance it might be possible to get the fence-sitters and the “live and let live” types to see the danger these people pose and convince them to take up the cause.