And people wonder why I’m always on about Christianity.
One of the most common questions I get when religious ranting occurs--you like how I refer to my own ranting in the passive voice, as if it were out of my power, a natural phenomenon like the rain or car accidents or the sunrise?--is something like, “But why the hostility? Why the vitriol toward Christianity and other religions?”
Well, it’s partially because of idiots like this guy. Here’s another one to go with the Chick-Fil-A brouhaha from the culture wars file:
Radio Pastor Calls For Homo-Friendly Muppets To Be Executed.
(Okay, that's my headline. It's still better than the one they used...)
So anyway, a person named Kevin Swanson, who is a “radio pastor,” whatever that might mean, went on the air last Friday and essentially pined for 1500 years of murderous homophobia:
“A Christian perspective ultimately brought the death penalty upon homosexuality between roughly 350 AD and roughly 1850 or so, for about 1,500 years that form of life had pretty much been eliminated except here and there, it was in the closet, but it was almost unheard of for over 1,000 years, until recently,” Swanson explained. “Of course, now you have a massive, massive increase in this kind of thing.”
Which, whatever, right? Typical fire-breathing idiocy one would expect from the radio version of a loving, Christ-centered ministry, right?
Only this guy was talking about...
Muppets.
Yes, Radio Pastor Swanson is on record calling for Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy to be, um, executed:
“And Kermit the Frog is not eating Chick-fil-A either,” Swanson continued. “Maybe Dan Cathy should consider doing a frog filet for one of the sandwiches.”
“I don’t think the frog filet will sell, just a little marketing advice, I think Miss Piggy on a bun, that’s a better bet, the winner,” Buehner suggested.
“Miss Piggy on a bun, that sounds good, a fried pig on a bun,” Swanson agreed.
These missionaries of Christ’s teachings--you know, things like “Love thy neighbor,” “Judge not lest ye be judged,” stuff like that--went on to speculate that The Muppets, beloved of countless millions of children and adults alike for maybe 50 years, “...take the sodomy route,” and likely support NAMBLA.
And let’s make this perfectly clear: this “radio pastor” (I picture one of those tall, wood-cabinet 1930s-era radios tricked out with a priest’s collar and a cross--which would contain an equal amount of brain matter and heart as Radio Pastor Swanson) has publicly called for THE MURDER OF PUPPETS.
Kneel down, son. Radio Pastor Swanson wants to feed you the body of a man. But first have some wine...
He thinks someone should kill heretical pieces of cloth, wire and stuffing. He believes Miss Piggy and Kermit should be burned until their ping pong ball eyes pop in the flames of righteous anger. He wants to hear a final “Kerrrrrmmmmiiiiiieeee!” as Piggy’s tattered fabric falls from her to the all-consuming fire of retribution. Good to see we've made so much progress.
Again, I don’t think this can be said often enough: Radio Pastor Swanson wants to kill Muppets.
That is the gayest got-dayum frog I ever seen. Hey! Is he making eyes at me, Vern?
First of all, someone quickly explain to Radio Pastor Swanson where the voices come from when he sees Muppets talking on his teevee screen, which he must have clicked past when he took a breather from watching sweaty, rassling men in tights while simultaneously masturbating, eating pork rinds and moon pies and swilling Jack on his Laz-E-Boy recliner dressed only in his rancid, yellowed underwear.
(Authorial license taken; I have no evidence as to the state of Radio Pastor Swanson’s underwear.)
Second, please Do Not explain to Radio Pastor Swanson how Muppets have a hole in their backside where someone--often a man--inserts his hand inside them, and then moves it around for the entertainment of children. That bit of enlightenment might not go over so well.
Or, on second thought, maybe that would sway him...no. Probably not.
SIDEBAR: Goddamn don’t these people love this kind of shit every time an election rolls around? Blow that dog whistle--uh, so to speak, heh heh--and the plebs will rally around whatever stupid cause you’ve cooked up for them and forget how you’ve been screwing them like Bangkok butt-boys for the past...well, forever. Our overlords must observe these periodic squabbles amongst us Small Folk with the amusement of humans watching The Puppy Bowl: they think we’re adorable in the way we scrabble around and beat each other up, but they know the results don’t matter in the least when it comes to the big picture. The Real Game is beyond our ken.
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To be sure, I grant that not all Christians are like this. Not all of them are hateful, ignorant, superstitious, batty douchebags so full of ill-placed vitriol and rage and likely repressed homosexual urges that they can’t see 2 inches in front of them. (Actually, it’s 5-6 inches on average for U.S. males. That seems to be the distance that is making these people so, um, “angry,” as it were. Maybe they just hate where their personal “compass” is pointing?)
"But heck!" you say. "Confused or not, some of my best friends are Christians!"
The problem with the “Nice Christian” scenario--aka the “He’s One of the Good-Uns” gambit--is that for every decent, kind, sane, chill Christian you can show me, there are a hundred examples like the above throughout history. Not living today, necessarily; I realize the moonbats will always be louder and more apparent than the Good-Uns. But over the past 2000 years--4000, if you count some of the insane vitriol in the Torah from whence most of this lunacy stemmed--there has not been any single organization that has done more to hold back human progress; spread bile, hatred and prejudice; foster sexual repression, confusion and ultimately deviance; promulgate torture, murder and outright warfare than the Catholic Church.
And of course I realize you can’t conflate Catholicism with Christianity; so say the protestants, and they have a point.
But guess what: without the Garden of Eden, without the Fall, without Original Sin--all that deliciously tragi-dramatic, emo stuff for which the Catholics have such a sick, self-flagellatory penchant--without that you got no need for Jesus to forgive us.
Without Jesus, you got no belief system.
And if you take away this belief system, imagine for a moment the madness that goes away with it. Imagine where humankind could be without religion bogging us down still! In this day and age, we know too much, and our problems are too dire to allow this bullshit Iron Age superstition and the ignorant people who cling to it to prevent us from at least attempting to save ourselves, even if it is too late.
And of course, many will point out that much of what I’m talking about is in the past, The Inquisition, the Crusades, the execution of homosexuals of which Radio Pastor Swanson spoke.
But that’s exactly the point: the hatred, bile, repression and rage we see today--at places like, say, your local Chick-Fil-A--stems directly from the same source. I argue that it’s not aberration; it’s exactly in line with what has gone on all along.
I don’t hate Jesus; I don’t even hate his followers. I hate the stifling, constraining, guilt-ridden message of self-loathing, obeisance and yes, hatred that they spread, overtly and covertly. Religion--and in the west, yes, I’m mostly talking about Christianity, because it is the most visible and most prevalent and its adherents the most vociferous--is like a gaseous poison. It's a miasma that hangs over everything humans have ever tried to do to raise ourselves up.
It’s time for a breath of fresh air--the smell of roasting Muppets notwithstanding.
--kjb
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