On the drive in to work today I had my dial tuned to American Family Radio. It’s an addiction, don’t judge me. “Focal Point with Bryan Fischer” is the show that’s usually on when I head to work (except for on Saturdays, when it’s “Down Gilead Lane,” which I LOVE SO FUCKING MUCH IT’S GROSS), and today they were apparently discussing the recent spate of young gay people killing themselves. A caller said of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi: “He killed himself because deep down he knew what he did was wrong.” Fischer thanked him for his excellent point and said that it wasn’t possible that his kid offed himself because of gay-bullying, because the kid Clementi had sex with on camera didn’t off himself.
Jeeeeesus.
And then the next caller, presumably taking the gay-suicide discussion further, asked Fischer — with the slightest tremble of giddiness in his voice — when a person knew it was time to pray imprecatory prayers. Fischer said the time, friends, is whenever your heart feels like pouring out its need for righteous vengeance to the Lord. One imagines that the caller spends his evenings rocking in the corner, muttering to God to smite the sodomites.
What has gone so rotten in your chest and your head that you cannot even fathom allowing your fellow men and women the basic dignities of existence, that you must plead with your sky friend to constantly bring pain and suffering to people so that you can feel better about the world you live in? What is wrong with you people?
That’s why I’m always asking the almighty to curse the food of my enemies, in addition to blessing mine.
If they have to be so obsessed with the “wrongness” of what other people do, I’d rather have them saying prayers to the Magical Sky Pixie than actually going out and doing something about it.
You find it difficult to comprehend that level of hatred because YOU WERE RAISED RIGHT, MISSY.
And by “right,” I mean “properly, with respect for all persons until they prove themselves unworthy of respect and, in that case, pity thereafter,” and not “DAMN YOU I AM GOING TO HEAVEN AND YOU ARE NOT BECAUSE GOD HATES YOU AND YOU ARE NOT PERFECT LIKE MEEEEE HE TOLD ME SO THIS MORNING.”
The only way I get my head around these sorts of folks, which is admittedly rarely anymore, I don’t find myself asking God to bring down His wrath upon them. I find myself thinking, “Go ahead on and have yourself a stroke on-air, you sanctimonious freak.” I find poetic justice more amusing than vengeance. Plus, schadenfreude is tasty. I also find myself giggling at the thought of praying to the FSM to smite them with garlic sauce.
(If I recall correctly, in my deeply-backslid-from-Church-of-Christ raisin’, the only one against whom we’re supposed to call down God’s vengeance is Satan. I also believe that includes Dick Cheney, but that’s just me, bwaha.)
BTW, you’re not the only one who finds listening to these types a guilty pleasure. I find myself listening to Ol’ Fred sometimes at lunch. And shaking my head and laughing, because he’s too sluggish to get worked up enough to pray for anybody to smite his enemies.
Oh! We saw a teaser for The Most Veriest Reverendest Rev. Pat Robertson’s Christian Bloviation Network program last night in which some dude kept going on and on about “OBAMA’S RAGE! GRRRR! RAGE! He HATES America because he HATES his FATHER!”
Err, dude. His dad was African. America helped feed, clothe and educate the man, and he seems pretty damned grateful for it. I think the RAGE GRRRR RAGE ARRRRRGH RAGE is coming from the AUTHOR and not the SUBJECT, eh?
And now, since I’ve used up all your bandwidth, I have to go write a post about my extended family’s coming to grips with OMG MOSLEMS IN OUR SCHOOLS OMG MAKING MY KIDS BE MOSLEM YES OH NO. I only wish I was making that up.
Fundamentalism in ANY religion is scary…and the Christians scare the hell out of me…WAY more than anyone else.