Category: current events

Maybe this is why people ditch Christianity

This is a tweet from Marjorie Taylor Greene, publicly saying she believes in the entire gospel message.

This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, talking about those who support aid for Ukraine, specifically saying that she hates people who support Ukraine, then doubling down to say she seriously hates them.

This is Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

This is a big part of the reason Christianity is losing its foothold in this country. People like Representative Taylor Greene wrap themselves in Jesus, proclaiming themselves to be de facto arbiters of what God wants. Then they turn around and proclaim hatred for anyone who doesn’t see the world the way they do.

If Marjorie Taylor Greene is the arbiter of proper Christianity, count me as part of the nones when it comes to religion.

I love America and Jesus, but this is not a Christian country. It’s a free country.

I’ve driven by this particular church dozens of times, but this morning is the first time I noticed a few American flags in front of it. I love this country. I love the freedoms we have–like the freedom to attend religious services or pop off in a blog post, both without fear. I also try to love Jesus (I’m not so good at that).

But I won’t attend a church that flies American flags out front.

The reason is crystallized in a quote from a Citrus County Chronicle column. The column quotes a man named John Labriola, a member of a group called Christian Family Coalition Florida. According to their website, their goal is to serve “as a voice for the pro-family citizens of Florida to ensure that our religious liberties are protected from government intrusion.”

At a recent Citrus County [Library] Advisory Board meeting, Mr. Labriola proclaimed that “this is a conservative community.” He also regularly reminds elected officials that, according to the column, “we are a Christian community and libraries and governments should act accordingly.”

With all respect to Mr. Labriola, Citrus county, along with every other county in the country, is most certainly not a Christian community. This country exists, in part, because people fled communities that proclaimed a specific religious affiliation. If America was built on the foundation of religious freedom. That means the government best serves us by letting us decide where and if we worship, and what books we allow our children to read, among other things.

Which brings me back to the flags in front of the church. God is bigger than any particular country. While he may love Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, he also loves Joe Biden and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. He even loves Gavin Newsom. He loves the people of the United States, but he also loves the people of Ukraine and Iran and Russia. He doesn’t favor the people of one country over another. He’s not aligned with a specific nation-state.

To indicate that God’s somehow aligned with America shrinks God to a nationalistic deity, when he not only created all the countries and their people, but everything else that exists. Everywhere.

A government that acts accordingly stays out of my way and allows my family to make its own decisions. That includes whether we attend church services, which church we attend, and what books we allow out children to check out from the library. If they want to check out Gender Queer, Nineteen Minutes, or Beloved (all typical targets for removal), Mr. Labriola, the Christian Family Coalition, and Moms for Liberty don’t get a say. Similarly, if they don’t want their kids checking out those books, I don’t get a say.

If my decision angers God, that’s between God and me. Mr. Labriola and all the others who wrap their political agenda in Jesus’ cloak can mind their own business.

And as a tangible manifestation of God’s presence, a church should be agnostic when it comes to countries. It can appreciate our freedom to worship as we please. Asserting a divine affinity for a specific country is not part of any church’s mission.

Conservative Christians are fond of saying that the purpose of the first amendment is to protect churches from the government, not to protect government from churches.

When the government aligns itself with a specific church or set of churches, it violates that principle. All the other churches become less free. That’s a direct violation of why this country was founded.

A free country doesn’t make its citizens pray

The statement was lost in the hub-bub around Donald Trump pitching Lee Greenwood’s Bible. Maybe it was just a little marketing flare, adapting his signature phrase to the situation. Or maybe it was another breadcrumb from the guy who lusts after the kind of power the President of China has.

But Donald Trump said he wants to make America pray again.

I know a number of Christians who probably wouldn’t disagree. They’d say we need more prayer. When I look around the world at some of the things we do to each other, I can’t completely disagree. But from the founding of this country, that’s always been a personal choice. You can pray or not, to whatever deity you choose or not. That’s part of what–pardon the phrase–makes America great.

Something tells me that wouldn’t necessarily be so if Donald Trump were to assume the level of power he wants. This is the man who openly says he wants to be dictator (but only for a day). It’s the guy who more or less runs the CPAC conference, where Jack Posobiec said welcome to the end of democracy and implied we need to replace it a theocracy. It the guy whose movement includes Christopher Rufo, who believes both in leveraging the power of government, and that recreational sex needs to go away.

If Trump gets the power he lusts after and we’re compelled under force of law to pray (a clear violation of the Constitution), something tells me we won’t be praying to Jehovah or Allah, or the contemplative God worshiped by people like Richard Rohr or Bono (too woke). It’ll be the real God, the one who smites all the people he’s angry at while speaking in his preferred language: Olde English. His justice will be swift and administered by the State–the same folks who define what God wants.

It’s worth noting that the Russian Orthodox Church was one of the earliest supporters of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that it’s one of Putin’s primary pillars of power. Given Trump’s demand for complete loyalty, if he were to make America pray again, it wouldn’t be for something he doesn’t like.

It’s entirely possible everything I’ve written is hyperbole, that Trump’s rhetorical excess is aimed at owning the Libtards like me. Maybe I’m getting worked up over nothing.

But Trump’s supporters say they like him because he says what he means. This is just the most recent unAmerican thing he’s said.

I pray a lot. Not as much as I should, but more than I used to. It’s something I do of my own free will to make myself better. But I will never pray to satisfy some superior power that can make me pay otherwise.

God doesn’t force prayer. The government sure as hell shouldn’t.

Support Trump if you want, but you don’t get to say you stand for freedom

“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.” — Jack Posobiec, CPAC, February 23.

Yes, it’s been almost three weeks since Posobiec said this. And this is my third post about it. But look at his statement. As if to amplify Posobiec’s audacity, Donald Trump–the man he supports–pledged to release the January 6 “hostages” on day one.

Because it’s a free country, you get to vote for a guy whose supporters are clamoring for the end of Democracy. You get to vote with people who think January 6 was a dry run to overthrow the government and we need to try again. You get to support a guy who views the people who tried to execute that coup as victims.

You don’t get to claim you stand for freedom. The end of democracy entails the end of any freedom our masters disapprove of. If Posobiec gets his way, we have to worship–but only the approved God, the one that amplifies the powers of the guy running the country. Trump has been clear that if you don’t have the proper religious beliefs, you aren’t welcome here.

You don’t get to say you stand for LAW & ORDER, as Trump had been known to tweet. There is literally nothing more unlawful than overthrowing government, though pardoning the people who attempted the overthrow comes close. And any pardon would come with an implied promise that he’ll take care of the offenders if they try again.

You don’t get to wrap yourself in the flag. Though others my disagree, that flag stands for the ideals built into the Constitution. That’s the same Constitution that provides our system of government–the one Posobiec wants to overthrow.

And you don’t get to say this is an America First movement. America means you get to worship as you will (or not) without the government taking action. It means you have a voice in how the country is run–even if you disagree with the guy in charge. It means something profoundly different than what Donald Trump, Jack Posobiec, and their movement wants to impose.

If you actively support Donald Trump for President, you don’t get to say you stand for decency, rule of law, or any of the protections we currently enjoy.

They don’t stand for any of that, and they’re not even hiding it.

Believe them when they tell you what they are

“He’s a non-controversial figure because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it. Right? He’s the boss.” — Donald Trump, speaking glowingly of Hungary’s Viktor Orban, this week.

China’s President Xi is “an exceptionally brilliant individual who governs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” — Donald Trump, last summer.

“I want to be a dictator for one day. You know why I wanted to be a dictator? Because I want a wall, and I want to drill, drill, drill.” — Donald Trump, last December.

“Yes, I think that that’s something – if you’re not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you’re not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too. I think that’s hypocritical.” — Indiana Senator Mike Braun, asserting that states should have the ability to outlaw interracial marriage by overturning Loving v. Virginia. He later walked those remarks back.

“We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, ignoring the Establishment Clause, July 2022

“The pill causes health problems for many women. ‘Recreational sex’ is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children–this is natural, normal, and good.” — Christopher Rufo, thinking he gets to dictate when consenting adults have sex, last month.

“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.” — Jack Posobiec, CPAC, last month.

Some would accuse me of cherry picking these quotes, but there are dozens more. And while Posobiec and Rufo aren’t part of the political structure, they’re part of the movement that’s honest about how it wants to change our country.

If Ronald Reagan said he wanted to be dictator for a day, the media would go insane. If Bill Clinton said it, the ghost of Rush Limbaugh would be reminding us of it thirty years later. The fact is, neither of them said it. The only person who publicly mused about doing away with our Constitutional republic so blatantly is Donald Trump.

Trump and Posobiec’s statement should still lead the news. The fact that an elected Representative crapped on the establishment clause shouldn’t be background noise. But it’s all been normalized. To our detriment, it is background noise.

For the record, the policies of the left are harmful. Many of Joe Biden’s supporters also love progressive DAs, such as George Gascon and Larry Krasner. The border is a mess (though Trump had his minions defeat a partial solution so he could run on the issue). The pull-out from Afghanistan was a disaster. Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma stink to high even (even if father wasn’t involved). And, yes, Joe Biden’s age and Kamala Harris’s lack of gravitas are legitimate issues.

None of these things involves blatant overtures to end our way of government.

As far as I know, Biden isn’t habitually praising dictators. He didn’t side with Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence services. He hasn’t toyed with the idea of allowing states to decide which consenting adults we can marry or when we can have sex with them. He doesn’t publicly lust for dictatorial powers. His minions aren’t proclaiming the end of Democracy.

Donald Trump and his supporters are telling us all what they are. They’ve done it so much, we’re immune to it.

The fact that this election appears to be close is jaw-dropping.

Trump supporters will do what they do. The fact that the rest of us aren’t doing everything possible to push back against them is scary.

The lust for dictatorial powers is rising, troubling, and ignored

It’s been a little more than a week since OANN anchor and Human Events editor Jack Posobiec greeted a crowd at CPAC with the words “Welcome to the end of democracy.” He continued by saying “We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to replace it with this right there.”

At that point, he held up a fist and said “All glory is not to government. All glory to God.” I’m a God guy, but our Constitution has an establishment clause that should make Posobiec’s statement a non-starter. The problem is, it hasn’t.

Within a day or so of that pronouncement, Christopher Rufo, Ron DeSantis’s education, uhh, gentleman, posted this on Twitter:

Posobiec admitted January 6 was an attempt to overthrow the government–then said the effort isn’t over. Rufo implied that what happens between consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes isn’t their business, but the government’s. The fact that his political allies, Christian and Bridget Ziegler had a throuple with another woman–and it didn’t seem like they were making babies–shouldn’t be mentioned. (He blocked me on Twitter for mentioning it.)

A generation ago, these pronouncements would’ve been the end of their political careers. Last weekend, they faded from the news cycle almost immediately.

The problem is, conservatives aren’t alone in wanting a more activist government. During Covid, governors in several states had almost unlimited power over what happened in their states. Andrew Cuomo was briefly considered a Presidential prospect before his own hubris brought him down.

Gavin Newsom unilaterally made California policy, at one point declaring “we don’t believe that there’s a green light that says go back…to a pre-pandemic mindset.” Under Gretchen Whitmer, Michiganders could go to the store to buy liquor and lottery tickets, but couldn’t buy seeds for a garden that would potentially reduce the number of future trips to the store.

Both sides are showing increased tolerance for bypassing the messy business of governing for the more efficient approach of “because I said so.” That works well in a house with young children, but not so well in a country build on laws.

A poll commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) showed that 69% said we’re headed in the wrong direction on free expression. A third of both Democrats and Republicans agreed with a statement that says the First Amendment goes too far. After being shown a list of opinions to select the most offensive, 52% said the community should not allow public speech that espouses that opinion.

The problem with rolling back freedoms is that once you cede them to the government, you don’t get them back–especially when one side is openly calling from our entire form of government to be overthrown. Jack Posobiec isn’t running for President, but very few on his side took exception to his lust for the end of our form of government.

Based on New York Times/Siena College poll released this weekend, Trump leads Biden by 5%. In addition to not disagreeing with Posobiec or Rufo, Trump has asserted that he intended to be dictator when he’s re-elected. His acolytes counter that it’s just for a day (or that he’s just trying to “own the libs”).

As with the previous statements, a Presidential candidate openly pining for dictatorial powers would’ve ended his run a generation ago. People would’ve understood that if you can make yourself dictator for even a second, you can make yourself dictator for as long as you want.

Unfortunately, a rising plurality of Americans seem to think that’s a good thing.

God doesn’t “need” you, even if you’re Donald Trump

Hello, Americans!

Paul Harvey’s been dead almost 15 years, but that didn’t stop the Trump campaign from using his voice (or a close approximation) in a new campaign ad titled “God made Trump.”

It’s a riff on a 1978 Paul Harvey speech called “God made a farmer.” The dialog would be off-putting regardless of whether it was about Trump, farmers, or a competent offensive coordinator for the Jets.

There’s also the fact that he’s appropriating a dead public figure to be a staunch supporter. Maybe Paul Harvey would support Trump, but he’s not here to make that choice.

In the voiceover, “Paul Harvey” has God saying “I need” or “I have to have” seven times. What God needs according to the ads is someone who’s up before dawn and stays at it until after midnight, who works 112 hours a week, and who ends his week each Sunday at church.

Yeah, it’s hyperbole, but it’s a campaign ad. Everyone puffs up their resume in campaign ads. He could say he works 170 hours a week and I wouldn’t care.

My problem with the Paul Harvey original and the fake Paul Harvey update is the concept that God needs something. In the Trump ad, God needs Donald Trump. It’s a bold move to say God needs you.

This is a man who demands absolute loyalty. He’s likely to be a jealous President, bring curses of a father’s sins upon even the third and fourth generation of those who hate him.

He’s the man who called for the execution of General Mark Milley and who, in words that could’ve come directly from the book of Exodus, promised retribution to those who oppose him.

The second God needs something, He stops being God. Anyone God needs instantly becomes more powerful than God–someone who is able to accomplish what even God can’t. According to the ad, that man is Donald Trump.

Anyone who proclaims that God needs them doesn’t understand the true nature of God.

(And speaking of true nature, how about the deals you’ll get at your neighborhood True Value hardware store. They have great deals there on all your hardware needs. Iiiiiiit’s true.)

I’d have this reaction to any political candidate with the audacity to say God needs them. It would be hard for me to look past that to anything else that candidate had to say.

And now you know…………..

……………………………..

……………………………..

…..the rest of the story.

Rufo and Stefanik were right about Claudine Gay. That doesn’t mean they’re right about anything else.

Christopher Rufo and Elise Stefanik are charter members of the fascist contingent that’s overtaken the Republican party, but they were right about former Harvard president Claudine Gay.

Listening to Stefanik’s show trail with Gay, former Penn president Liz Megill, and MIT president Sally Kornbluth was, as the kids say, cringe. But their answers were worse. It’s hard to present yourself as a staunch defender of free speech when your institution and many others have, for decades, used vague security concerns as a way to effectively silence conservative speakers invited on campus.

Megill resigned over her ham-handed responses to the show trial. Now Gay is out, after repeated accusations of plagiarism, driven in large part by Rufo. Most of the commentary I’ve read from academics has said that a student at Harvard would be severely disciplined and maybe expelled for the very things Gay did.

In many ways, this is a zero-sum game. Gay’s detractors will use her misconduct as a blanket to indict all DEI initiatives at college campuses. Stefanik has taken credit for Gay’s resignation on Twitter, saying “TWO DOWN” in a Twitter post that promised to uncover “the greatest scandal of any college or university in history.”

Harvard’s been around 388 years and a case of plagiarism isn’t just the greatest scandal in its history, but it’ll be the greatest scandal in the history of higher education. Sure.

In spite of the way Stafanik, Gay’s detractors, and her allies are trying to frame this, her resignation was about plagiarism. Period. It wasn’t about DEI or anti-semitism. It wasn’t about bad answers at a show trial. And it wasn’t about Claudine Gay’s race.

To say that Gay’s status as the first black president of Harvard outweighs the plagiarism is the same mindset that’s propelled Donald Trump to the lead in the Republican presidential race. January 6, the continued lies about the 2020 election, and his promises to be retribution on anyone who doesn’t show proper loyalty don’t matter. He must be defended because of what he represents and who he opposes.

Brushing away Gay’s plagiarism as bogus and racist applies the same standard. It makes her conduct secondary to what she stands for and represents. To borrow a phrase, she could go shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support.

A stopped clock is right twice a day. That says nothing about all the times it’s wrong. Rufo and Stefanik are right about Gay (except that she didn’t leave because of the House hearing). That doesn’t mean they’re right about anything else. Each case must be determined on its circumstance.

That’s worth remembering the next time academics are hauled in front of a House panel to feed raw meat to the base.

Almost 700 books pulled from Orange Co., Florida bookshelves. Because freedom.

Ron Desantis and his allies in Moms for Liberty (insert threesome reference here) can rightly say they didn’t ban the 673 books pulled from Orange County Florida educators’ bookshelves this year.

The catalyst for the books being pulled are two Florida that require media specialists to review books in libraries or classrooms and remove any that have sexually lewd material or pornography. Because anyone running afoul of the law could lose their teaching license and face criminal penalties, the state–which enforces these laws–is advising educators to err on the side of removing books.

The books can be reviewed and a later date and put back in circulation, sometime. Until the next complaint. Though I’ve read only a fraction of the pulled books, I’m familiar with many of the authors. Banned books include the Raymond Chandler series, the Philip K. Dick story that was the basis for Bladerunner, Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, and multiple novels by John Grisham, Stephen King, George RR Martin, and, of course, Jodi Piccoult.

Jodi Piccoult. The literary equivalent of Ron Jeremy. Except for the porn. And the sexual assault.

Several of the books, including Slaughterhouse Five, Strange New World, East of Eden, and On the Road were on student book lists when I was a teenager.

Desantis’s defenders (at least those not currently involved in throuples) will say they didn’t ban the books. They can’t control what books get pulled by educators enforcing their policies.They’ll rightfully point to books by Anonymous and the Fifty Shades series as examples of books schools shouldn’t provide.

But Born on the Fourth of July? The Big Sleep? Coma? Sophie’s Choice?

Any policy vague enough to cause those books to be pulled is either designed that way or needs adjustment–something Desantis doesn’t seem to care for.

He says this is all designed to protect parents’ rights. What about parents who don’t mind their kid reading Nineteen Minutes? Whose kid might read Chandler or James Lee Burke and develop a life-long love of a genre? What about their rights?

Why should they have to buy books from Amazon when the overwhelming majority of parents would find them unobjectionable and they were otherwise available to the kids on demand.

If you don’t want your child exposed to Philip Marlowe, that’s your decision. It’s a silly decision, but I support your right to make it. But you shouldn’t get to decide what my kid’s exposed to.

This isn’t about porn. If it were, The Invisible Man wouldn’t be on the list. A book where two daughters get their father drunk and date rape him so they can have babies might be. (That would be the book of Genesis, by the way.)

It’s about setting up a system in which a politically motivated minority gets to decide what the rest of us can consume.

It’s about power and ultimately about thought control. The high irony is that 1984 isn’t on the list.

Not yet, anyway.

Pope Francis’ decision to bless same-sex couples angers conservatives. I’m not sure it’s wrong.

For years, my position on gay marriage has been that in a free society, you don’t tell deny consenting adults the right to enter into a contract. In other words, gays and lesbians should have the same right to be legally married as straight people. In a free society, we don’t shape law solely around the book of Leviticus.

It was a comfortable position that allowed me to split the difference. In front of the law, the right is absolute. But the law cannot tell churches what to do. If a church decided not to bless gay marriage, that’s their right.

It allowed me to bypass the thorny question of what I’d do if my church started blessing or even performing same-sex unions.

Though I’m not currently a practicing Catholic, Pope Francis‘ decision earlier this week took away my comfortable spot.

To be clear, the Pope isn’t allowing gay marriage—the policy is clear on that. In no way, can the blessing be associated with anything like a church marriage ceremony. His policy change had all the expected results. Liberals, both religious and political, were split. Some praised the move, while others said the change amounted to watered-down homophobia.

Conservatives consider it apostasy. Bishops in Zambia, Malawi, and Kazakhstan overrode that decision, forbidding the blessings. Bishops in Ukraine warned the action could signal support for gay marriage. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued what the Wall Street Journal called a terse response, stressing that there’s no change in the church’s position on gay marriage. The presumed antagonism to the policy change remained unsaid.

Unlike American law, churches are, and should be, free to set policy solely on what the Bible says. Though popular sentiment may push back against it, churches are not bound by the will of the people or the US Constitution’s requirement for equal protection under the law.

If one of my children were to enter into a gay or lesbian marriage, I wouldn’t cut them off. I wouldn’t condemn them. I would continue to love them–and their partner. It’s an open question whether God has an issue with it (I don’t think He would), but I’m to do my best to extend the love God has for me.

I find it hard to believe that a loving God would tell someone, “well, you did everything right except that you had the hots for and fell in love with someone of the same sex. They don’t have air conditioners in hell.”

Jesus’ ministry was marked by reaching out to people society viewed as outsiders. Loose women and prostitutes, tax collectors, criminals, Samaritans, and Gentiles. If they’d been a thing back then, he’d have even reached out to people who think pineapple belongs on pizza. He’d invite them to his love. I know this because he’s working on melting my stony black heart.

I know what Leviticus says. I also know those requirements came at a time when, according to the Bible, the Israelites were wondering around the desert. Anything that prevented them from keeping the population up–like having sex with someone you can’t procreate with–would hurt their chances of survival. In most cases, how a society views go says as much about that society as it says about God.

In a world where people are being bombed and starved, where the poor and elderly are often fleeced and hate and anger are plentiful commodities, I’m not sure God would consider a heartfelt same-sex union among the bigger problems.

There are many things I disagree with Pope Francis on. This is not one of them.