Yes. Forget all that silliness about geotectonic shifts: Earthquakes are caused by gay sex. And abortion rights advocates caused the tsunami. Katrina? Don't blame global warming, and don't blame poor levee construction or land management policies. Blame the queers. So sayeth the religious leader and opinion writer quoted here.
(The worst earthquake in American history occurred in 1811. Our pioneer forefathers must've been kinkier than most people think.)
This pastor's proclamation may amuse, but it also brings us to an important question. On the question of religion, progressives must choose between two alternatives:
1. We can try to make inroads into the church-going segment of the populace. We can try to reach believers and convince them that, despite the incessant propaganda they hear from televangelists, it is possible to keep the faith while voting against corrupt and hypocritical Republicans.
2. We can denounce religion -- not religious extremism: religion -- as superstition. We can recognise that those who would attack evolution, who would attack science itself, constitute an absolute evil. You do not debate with evil: You confront it and combat it.
Most of the time, I vote for option 1. But whenever some clergyman spouts primitive nonsense, the second option begins to seem attractive.
When Voltaire said "écrasez l'infâme," religion permeated every aspect of French society, the way smoke permeates a burning building. Within 15 years of his death, a statue of the Goddess of Reason was erected in the cathedral at Notre Dame. Such a massive societal change in so short a time. Think of it. Such things are possible.
3 comments:
Let's see if the Mexican people have bigger balls than the American people.
"We"?
Can't wrap your head around the idea that some of your fellow political progressives have many good reasons that we are involved with our various religious practices (not all Christian) that not only suit our needs but inform and underly our political positions?
It is people like him that give christian a bad name. While I am gay, a poet I can not call meself a christian. Still as a poet I must face up to the fack that there are many christians in this country and must speak with them
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