(As ever, many thanks to my friends at The Sinner’s Guide To The Evangelical Right and DefCon)
Having sat through Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © State of the Union speech, it seems clear that the war in Iraq has now taken on the status of a Holy Crusade, and regardless of how many of our sons and daughters die pointless, senseless deaths, it will continue unabated.
Feeling appropriately emboldened by Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s modern-day crusade, Evangelicals seem to be expanding their own war, this one against Americans who don’t share the narrow, End Times beliefs. Some are even advocating that we go to war against Iran. Hey, we’ve got something like 150,000 troops next door. Why not?
Yep, just another week in Jesusland.
New York Church Hosting ‘Porn and Pancakes’ Discussion: Sorry to get your hopes up, but this isn’t exactly “Breakfast with Benefits” we’re talking about here….
Tony Perkins Says Bush Is A “Failure” On “Family” Issues: Hmm… Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © has been a failure in every other aspect of his Presidency. Why does Perkins think that his narrow, hate-based agenda should be (mis)handled any differently?
Christian Groups Outraged By Dakota Fanning Film: Even before the first screening of “Hounddog” at the Sundance Film Festival this week, a Christian film critic, citing Fanning’s age, decried the movie as child abuse, and Roman Catholic activist Bill Donohue called for a boycott. Fanning is defending her work as well as the movie, and so is the head of Sundance, who said it was courageous for director Deborah Kampmeier to tackle “challenging material.” “Hounddog” is entered in the festival’s dramatic category….”It’s not a rape movie,” Fanning said Tuesday. “That’s not even the point of the film.”….OHMIGOD!! WHAT ABOUT THE POOR, INNOCENT, PRECIOUS CHILDREN!!!! I wonder if either of these trolls have even bothered to see the movie? I’d bet just about anything that Donoghue, a reactionary mental midget if ever there was one, is basing his reaction to the movie solely on what he’s heard. Look, y’all…if the 12-year-old in question is defending the movie and the scene in question…well, surely there must be something else for you to get worked up over? After all, self-righteous piety never takes a holiday, right?
Documentary shows how the Bible has been used to justify discrimination: Opening Sunday night at the Sundance Film Festival is Karslake’s “For the Bible Tells Me So,” a documentary in the independent film competition. The production, which took more than three years to complete, was funded in large part by Orem-resident Bruce Bastian, co-creator of the word-processing software that became WordPerfect. The film shows how the Bible’s verses have been used to justify, over centuries, various forms of discrimination, and how today religious conservatives use the Good Book to back anti-gay rhetoric…. Scripture being used to justify hatred, discrimination, and repression in the name of righteousness and piety? Perish the thought! May you burn in the fires of Hell for even THINKING like that….
Evangelicals Use So-Called “Post-Abortion Syndrome” To Reframe the Debate: Early on a a windy Saturday morning in November, Rhonda Arias drove her Dodge Caravan past a Wal-Mart at the end of her block and onto the Interstate. She was beginning the 50-mile drive from her house in southwest Houston to Plane State Jail, where she is, as she puts it, an “abortion-recovery counselor.” To Arias, that means helping women at the prison who have had abortions to understand how that procedure has stained them, and how it explains what has gone wrong in their lives. The prisoners’ abortions, she told me, “have a great deal to do with their pain.”…. Ah, yes, there’s nothing quite like skillfully employing liberal doses of guilt in order to manipulate people into coming to Christ, eh? And you thought this sort of emotional manipulation only happened in Catholic schools….
As Bush’s War Strategy Shifts to Iran, Christian Zionists Gear Up for the Apocalypse: Christian Zionists are dancing the hora in San Antonio. Armageddon appears to be at hand. As George W. Bush sets his sights on Iran, even Republicans are wondering how to constitutionally contain the trigger-happy king. But for an influential group of Christian fundamentalists — White House allies that garner not only feel-good meetings with the President’s liaisons to the “faith-based” community but also serious discussions with Bush’s national security staff — an attack on Iran is just what God ordered. Biblical literalists, convened together through San Antonio megapastor John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI), are now seeing the fruits of their yearlong campaign to convince the Bush administration to attack Iran.…. Yeah, I know; this whole “peace, love, and Christian charity” thing is WAY overrated….
The Radical Christian Right Is Built on Suburban Despair: The engine that drives the radical Christian Right in the United States, the most dangerous mass movement in American history, is not religiosity, but despair. It is a movement built on the growing personal and economic despair of tens of millions of Americans, who watched helplessly as their communities were plunged into poverty by the flight of manufacturing jobs, their families and neighborhoods torn apart by neglect and indifference, and who eventually lost hope that America was a place where they had a future. This despair crosses economic boundaries, of course, enveloping many in the middle class who live trapped in huge, soulless exurbs where, lacking any form of community rituals or centers, they also feel deeply isolated, vulnerable and lonely. Those in despair are the most easily manipulated by demagogues, who promise a fantastic utopia, whether it is a worker’s paradise, fraternite-egalite-liberte, or the second coming of Jesus Christ.… Hmm…soulless, no sense of community, isolated…kinda sounds like The Woodlands, doesn’t it??
Defending Marriage: Debate-Tested Sound Bites: Helpful, debate-tested soundbites for defenders of natural marriage and the family: Here is a collection of lines and arguments that Focus on the Family has learned work best in the many public debates we have done on the issue of the same-sex family. These sound bites have also been tested by focus groups and rated very strongly…. Hmm…what a surprise; Right-wing Republicans and Evangelical zealots sharing talking points. That would help explain the war in Iraq, eh?
