Get Your Cross Off My America

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Who names their kid "Newt", anyway?

"A growing culture of radical secularism declares that the nation cannot profess the truths on which it was founded"

Another slimey old Christian Conservative said this as part of a commencement speech at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University (you know, the one that was bailed out of debt by the Moonie cult.) That slimeball would be Newt Gingrich. I don’t know how Mr. Gingrich can find secularism to be radical as the sole purpose of secularism in a country is to focus purely on the basics of society and to not rely on any intangible ideas belonging to any particular religion so as to best serve and care for all the citizens. But I suppose Gingrich and other Conservatives consider this idea something drastic and extremist?

All one has to do is replace the word "radical" with the word "infidel" to get an idea of what Gingrich and others of his ilk are really thinking. To these people anything anyone else does is somehow purposefully orchestrated to attack them, and striving for neutrality so to fairly cater to people of all creeds and philosophies isn’t something they care about. You would think such people would be ignored and written off, wouldn’t you? And often it’s claimed that they are. And when Gingrich went on to imply the goal of the Religious Right is to convert all of America to Christianity, he was not met with scattered clapping or awkward silence, no, but cheering.

Anybody on the left who hopes that when people like Reverend Falwell disappear that the opportunity to convert all of America has gone with them fundamentally misunderstands why institutions like this were created [emphasis added]

The actual logo of a real group

Imagine 17,000 people, most of them college graduates, cheering at this. Christians, I know some of you out there are good, and don’t think this way, but too many of you also adamantly ignore the people who do. You can’t keep saying this is just a "vocal minority" as if they have no impact. Newt Gingrich is a political figure, former Speaker of the House, one who has cheated on a spouse, divorced, remarried, tried to get other people expelled from Congress over extramarital affairs like a big fat hypocrite, and yet still commands the doe-eyed love and devotion of many of the religious merely because he’s Christian and thus automatically a "good" person.

The irritating part is this doesn’t end with Falwell and his associates, there are people who advocate having Christian teachers get jobs at public schools and secretly teach Christianity as truth in class. One of our own Presidents, while as Vice President, said he didn’t think Atheists should be considered US citizens or patriots simply because they don’t believe in the concept of gods. There are many groups and individuals out there, some of them with alot of influence over the Christian community, from all denominations of Christianity who are brought together by a single belief: to make America into a theocracy (they’re called Dominionists, apparently.) Man, and these are the people who constantly claim gay people have an agenda! 

Yes, in Bush Jesus we trust
These aren’t the Westboro Baptsits,
by the way.

A theocracy based on the Bible may sound good to some of you out there, but that’s rather narrow point of view. How far would it go if, say, Biblical literalists were penning US law? Would anyone found out to be gay be executed, as the Bible mandates? Will you and everyone in your family and even your pets be killed if you’re found to be practicing another religion? I mean Moses and other patriarchs lead armies into Pagan cities and killed everyone to the last man, woman, child and animal by the sword, under God’s command, throughout much of the Old Testament. Forgetting the Old Testament, would all women have to be silent, and no longer be allowed to teach, seeing as the Pauline Epistles say women can’t teach or have any authority over a man (1 Timothy 2:11-12, 1 Cor.14:34-35)? Would a Christian theocracy put an end to female bosses in any career, females in Congress and the Senate, female teachers in schools? Hell, maybe even women’s suffrage? Forgetting the Bible for a minute: Would there be mandatory church services? Would being anything other than Christian be illegal? I think something like that was experimented with sometime in the past… nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Look, last time Christians had control of the government, (before there even was the United States) 20 innocent people, including one priest, were hung as witches based on the testimony of four bored little girls pretending to be possessed by demons. You guys had your chance, and goddamn did you ever blow it. Secularism has worked fine since the Founding Fathers:  you’re free to say and believe what you want to believe, I’m free to say and believe what I want to believe, the government won’t ordain a religion so neither my nor your beliefs and the free practice of those beliefs are threatened, I don’t see the problem here.

"Christian" Statue of Liberty erected by a
church in Memphis with too much money.
We need to start charging churches taxes

But apparently some people do see a problem. Apparently some people strive for a world where they can silence others with man’s authority for belittling their particular god’s. What I want to know is how is that any different than all those "backwards" Middle Eastern countries where the rules of an Abrahamic religion control the governing law? And if this mentality doesn’t disturb, worry or frighten you in the least there’s something wrong with you.  

In this age we face the irreconcilable wing of Islam, an enemy who does not believe that God created all men equal by right.

To his great credit, Rev. Falwell decided to step forward publicly and counter the outrageous intolerance of the secular absolutists. We often hear the need to celebrate free secular and artistic expression — but rarely for religious expression. This anti-religious bias must end.

I’ll say this as politely as I can in the face of the words being spoken: get down off your fucking cross, Mr. Gingrich (There, I called him "Mr.") Rarely for religious expression? Give me a break. If there was no celebration of free religious expression I wouldn’t have to sit through commercials for Christian music on Nickelodeon with a grinning, crazy-eyed woman telling me "this is music we all can enjoy". If there was rarely support of free religious expression there’d be no televangelists on TV, there’d be no Veggie Tales movies, there’d be no Christmas music playing non-stop for 3 months in department stores slowly driving the employees insane, there’d be no fucking tax-exempt status for churches, there’d be no putting up with Bush’s constant Bible quotes used to distract people from the stupidity coming out of his mouth with the idea that he’s a "good Christian man".

With gays still being thought of as subhuman perverts out to destroy America by a large portion of society, with Atheists being literally the most distrusted minority in America, with Islam being portrayed a religion of Jihadists who only want to bomb things (and of course at the same time it’s wrong to portray Christians as Jihadists who like to pipe bomb abortion clinics just because some of them enjoy it), with any New Age, Pagan or Neo-Pagan beliefs being thought of as devil worship, with anyone who isn’t Christian being viewed as somehow terribly lost or ammoral… this whining about imaginary Christian persecution really irritates me. But like most Christian Conservative Republicans, Mr. Gingrich here seems to think if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth.

I beg of you all out there, please stop refusing to believe people like this exist, that they aren’t organized, that they don’t have an effect on society in a significant way. They’ll only listen to other Christians, even if just barely, someone like me who sooo obviously has an agenda to destroy America will just be ignored. Sadly the only way to have an effect would be to stoop to their tactics, pretend to be Christian, become a mega-church Televangelist, gain a following and influence them all. I think someone doing a background check just might find my website, though…

And lastly: please God, if you’re up there with Vishnu, Odin and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, smite Newt Gingrich next. If all the hateful Fundies start dropping dead one after another I’ll consider it a sign you exist.