Bush' Trojan Christ

Bush's Trojan Christ

It used to be that Christians were known to all by their good deeds, but after almost four decades of the GOP's cleaving the populace into warring sects to be manipulated at the polls, 'being Christian' is no longer defined by doing good deeds, it's defined by an arrogant mission to tell others how they must live---who they can marry, who they can adopt, what they can say in public, what they must teach in schools---all the way down to what kind of medicine they should have access to.

Sounds vaguely like some people to whom I'm related. Now, who could it be?

But 'The Great Awakening' now brings us faith-based leaders promoting torture and war, who lie to us on a daily basis, and violate our constitutionally guaranteed rights. The 'national debate' about values is reduced to quippy bumper stickers like 'It's Okay To Pray' or 'One Man + One Woman = Marriage.' Our national conversation on ethics, morality, and faith has become a kind of WWF 'Religious Smackdown.'

Is it a coincidence that our most pro-faith president is also our biggest law-breaking president, presiding over our most scandalized administration in history? You tell me.

Is it coincidence that our pro-faith vice president has a gay daughter he'd prevent from adopting a child or marrying her lover, a great Christian whose wife converts from writing lesbian romance novels to ethics primers for kids in the blink of a presidential campaign, a soldier of Christ who tells a senator on the Senate floor to go fuck himself? You tell me.

We have two million people incarcerated in federal prisons. If we're to believe the polls the Pat Robertsons and Bill O'Reillys constantly throw at us that 89% of our country are practicing Christians, that means our federal prisons are stuffed to the breaking point with about 1.8 million Bible-thumpers. Hmmm.

How come when we talk about religion in the great national debate, it's never fact s like these we discuss, instead of arguing over posting the Ten Commandments in City Hall?

What about Lynddie England, described as rarely leaving her barracks in Iraq except to go to church--and of course torture naked Iraqis by forcing them to simulate anal sex for snapshots taken by the father of her illegitimate child. If that 89% is correct, wouldn't that mean that the majority of Lynddie's co-torturers were, you know, Christians? When are we having that faith-based discussion?

And poor Clay Aiken, touting his Christianity to the blind, er, I mean, fans of American Idol, rumored to be caught in a gay relationship and seeking the love that dare not speak it's name on the Web, all the while recording an album of ---you guessed it---Christian songs. It's been reported some fans are so mad they want to sue RCA for false advertising. Why aren't we hearing any talk about the gullibility of a Christian audience in our national debate? Why is this kind of intelligent discussion avoided in favor of finger pointing and sneering? If Aiken were gay, his claim of devout Christianity gave him the power to fool--or at least encourage denial in--millions. Shouldn't we look into that power?

And what about the Duke lacrosse team? The entire debate is whether or not a rape occurred, not what were a room full of Christian boys from 'good homes' (two of them educated by Jesuits) doing ordering strippers to entertain them while threatening sodomy with a broomstick and taunting black women with racist jibes about their cotton-picking slave grandparents? Why don't we discuss Christianity in that context?

And of course there's Tom Delay, the great born-again purveyor of moral rectitude, the man with his hand in so many tills even Texas republicans had to cut him loose. The President salutes him as a great patriot who 'served his country well' and the Rove-minions repeat ad nauseum, 'the Dems don't have their poster-boy for corruption to kick around anymore.' What does that mean, exactly? Did he do it, or not? If he's innocent, then how could he possibly be a poster-boy for corruption? And if he's guilty, why is the president saluting his patriotism? And if he's a thief and a liar, what are we to think of his relentless touting of Christian values? Doesn't that mean he's a hypocrite, and that Christian values, in a political sense, are meaningless?

...given the religious makeup of our populace, pedophiles, thieves, liars, hypocrites and torturers in America are more likely to be Christians than Jews, Buddhists, Muslims--or atheists. It's simple math.

All perfectly logical. Yet I somehow feel it would be completely wasted on the Reich.