Morford: Scary Jesus

When scary Jesus makes the news

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, January 8, 2010

Will it be drugs? Will it be gays? Will it be an unwieldy sex scandal featuring seedy hotels, bad cologne and grossly detailed text messages you never want to read? How about another "family values"' congressman busted for cruising gay chat rooms or hitting on young male pages in the congressional bathroom? That's always heartwarming.

Or maybe it will be another enchanting case of sexual abuse and pedophilia in the Catholic Church! What, too 2001? Fine, how about six decades of child rape and beatings at the hands of countless nuns and priests in Irish Catholic orphanages? Oh right, that was last year. The pope slamming birth control in Africa? Megachurch pastors shamelessly fleecing their gullible flock for still more millions? Some spectacular combination of the above? So many choices! What's your pleasure, good reader?

Of one thing you can be absolutely certain: whenever self-righteous Christians make the news, it's going to be... embarrassing. Sad. Sickening. Disingenuous. A little dangerous. A lot pitiable.

Homophobic? Frequently. Hypocritical? Invariably. Deeply ignorant of the real teachings of the true, mystical, renegade, anti-authority Jesus, who was about as far from the modern Pentecostal evangelical fundamentalist organized-religion worldview as a vegan from a Kansas slaughterhouse? You already know the answer.

All of which makes it delightful -- in that nauseatingly familiar sort of way -- to read the story about the Northern California evangelicals whose repulsive views on homosexuality and "curing" gay people reportedly helped shape a new, violently anti-gay bill in Uganda.

Did you see? The New York Times piece about how Ugandan officials took the American evangelicals' beliefs about the best ways to punish/reform "evil" gays to its natural conclusion, and decided, if all other forcible rehab options fail, it would be perfectly appropriate to simply exterminate the homosexuals?

I mean, why not? If it's certifiably evil, if you can't "cure" it, if it scares the livestock, transmits disease, preys upon young boys and makes the older men fantasize in dangerous and uneasy ways, if God (not really) said it was an abomination, what's the problem?

Of course, the radical evangelicals in question were -- or at least pretended to be -- horrified at this practical summation of their views, immediately wrote panicky letters to Ugandan officials to correct their unfortunate "misinterpretation," as damn well they should have.

"No, no, no!" they sort of said. "We didn't mean actually kill them. That would be wrong. We simply meant gently, lovingly rehabilitate. You know: drugs, imprisonment, maybe some beatings, public humiliation, brainwashing, genital torture, electroshock therapy like the Mormons used to do.

"Barring that, just do what we do in America: psychological torment in the form of relentless, crushing guilt. This will make the evil gay feel so suicidally depressed about his perfectly natural desires, his body, his emotions, who he is as a living soul on this planet, he's bound to come around. See, like most major religions of the world, we work to shame the sinner so horribly that if he doesn't kill himself, you'll end up with a fine, completely numb soldier of Christ! But don't actually kill them. Heavens!"

Ugandan officials, apparently a bit confused about just how this crazy evangelical thing works, agreed to re-draft the bill and take out the killing stuff. "You extremist Christians are so weird," they seemed to say, rolling their eyes.

It's a story that folds in nicely with the sad little furor regarding tired ol' Brit Hume over at Fox News, a slumpy veteran talking head who recently muttered something gently asinine on the air about Tiger Woods, Buddhism and converting Tiger to the land of happy fuzzy Christ.

Indeed, Hume suggested during a broadcast that Tiger would do well to renounce his sinful ways, pack up his little Temple O' Buddhism and move to Sweet Home Jesuslandia, home of Ted Haggard, Carrie Prejean and thousands of priests who are no longer allowed to touch children -- where all is safe and redemptive and no one has much sex, and if they do it's certainly not very much fun and doesn't last more than 90 seconds in the dark in the congressional bathroom. So thoughtful you are, Brit!

So then. Is the mildly offensive part how Hume tried to convert Tiger on national TV? Is it how he obviously doesn't understand much about Buddhism and how it pre-dates Christianity by hundreds, if not thousands, of years? Or is it how Hume won't apologize and is now claiming Christian persecution as a result of being so pseudo-righteous? All of the above? Does it even matter?

Of course it doesn't. But I have to admit, ever since Dubya so mercifully slumped off the national stage and hauled his fractured, dejected army of Christian fundamentalists with him, the stories about unfortunate imbecility, sexual misadventure and righteous indignation in the name of Christ have slowed to a mere trickle. Which is not a bad thing at all, really.

Oh sure, they're still out there, but the Christian right no longer dominates the national dialogue as it once did. Now the Jesus crusaders have largely been replaced by an even sillier and more fringe bunch -- birthers and teabaggers and such -- citizens who don't even have the excuse of a misinterpreted, fear-based faith to back their biases and anxieties. Now they just have ... Glenn Beck.

No matter. We can all safely assume millions of good, reasonable Christians were just as disgusted as anyone over the fringe evangelical hatred on display in the Uganda story. And most would even agree that Hume was a bit of a jackass for daring to "correct" anyone's faith, especially one of the great, peaceful religions of the world, even on a network as shamelessly right-wing and morally unhinged as Fox News.

In that sense, these two stories point to a broader truth: Never forget to be thankful, humble pilgrim, when you stumble over barbed tales like this, that times have changed, are changing, keep right on changing ... usually for the better. In other words, as dire or inane as these stories may seem, offer a moment of heaping, divine gratitude that it's not like it used to be. And with any luck, it never will be again.

Hell, you can bet even Jesus is grateful for that.

You can find the original by clicking here.

Home Instead

My 83-year old father is starting to exhibit some ... elderly issues. Memory impairment is a pretty spooky thing, for everyone involved. He still recognizes everyone, as far as I know, but his memory just ain't what it used to be.

We - I and my siblings - are trying to accomodate his wishes to stay in his own home, but we are slowly marching towards the nursing home or assisted-living center, I think.

Home Instead is the agency that we are planning to employ to help him to stay in his own home, instead of going to some other home, whether that other home is the home of one of his children or a home...as in assisted-living home.

This is a pretty tough time. I never would have thought it, but I have broken out in some hives lately, and since I can think of no new biological agent that we might have introduced into our lives, such as new soap or detergent, etc., I think these hives are stress-related. Fortunately, Benadryl removes my urge to scratch. CHILL. OUT.

Hey, it's time for some yoga....

I have to laugh

The Democrats are just so pathetically inept, if I don't laugh at them, I might do something stupid.

Have to have 60 votes to pass anything? Wrong and stupid.

Let Kennedy's MA Senate seat get away? Inept.

Water down the healthcare bill so it's unrecognizeable? Sold-out.

How I wish there was a viable 3rd, and 4th party in this country. The two we have are both filled with clowns, cretins and corporate clones.

The Week's Best Late-Night Jokes
Friday January 22, 2010

"During his acceptance speech, newly elected Senator Scott Brown told the crowd that his two daughters are both available. So many great American speeches: 'Four score and seven years ago,' 'Ask not what your country can do for you,' 'I have a dream,' and now 'My daughters are both available.'"
-Jimmy Fallon

"It's not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It's that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs."
-Jon Stewart

"Massachusetts elects a Republican who drives a truck with 200,000 miles on it. It's a Chevy truck. Which is more hard to believe, that Massachusetts elects a Republican, or Chevy builds a truck that lasts 200,000 miles?"
-David Letterman

"Today marks the official beginning of President Obama's second year in office. He has three years left, but NBC offered him $45 million to leave altogether."
-Jimmy Fallon

"I am Conan O'Brien, and I am just three days away from the biggest drinking binge in history."
-Conan O'Brien

"The Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot stop corporations from spending money on political candidates. Which explains why Sarah Palin has accepted $1 million to change her name to Pizza Hut."
-Jimmy Fallon

Who is the best late-night comedian?

"You know, it's hard to believe President Obama has now been in office for a year. Isn't that amazing? It's a year. And you know, it's incredible. He took something that was in terrible, terrible shape, and he brought it back from the brink of disaster: The Republican party."
-Jay Leno

"Today, by the way, is our president, President Obama's, one-year anniversary in office. I looked it up. Traditionally on the first anniversary, you give paper, so, I got him his birth certificate."
-Jimmy Kimmel

"This is pretty sleazy. John Edwards' former aide says in an upcoming interview that Edwards asked him to steal a diaper from the baby to do a DNA test. Apparently the test showed that both the diaper and John Edwards are full of crap."
-Jay Leno

"There was a big Senate race in Massachusetts yesterday, and the winner, Scott Brown, made a victory speech where he mentioned that his two daughters were 'available.' At least this explains his campaign slogan: 'Scott Brown: Creepy for Massachusetts, Creepy for America.'"
-Conan O'Brien

"Scott Brown posed naked for Cosmo when he was in law school. See back then, GOP stood for Grand Old Package."
-Jay Leno

"In the press this week, NBC has been calling me every name in the book. In fact, they think I'm such an idiot they now want me to run the network."
--Conan O'Brien

"I should have known something was up when NBC sent me that 2010 calendar that only went up to January."
-Conan O'Brien

"Listen to this: In 2009, the FBI reported a 20 percent decrease in the number of people robbing banks. There was, however, a huge increase in the number of banks robbing people."
-Jimmy Fallon

"The Kennedy legacy goes down to a naked guy who owns a truck."
-Jon Stewart, on Scott Brown

"Let me see if I have this straight. You need to replace perhaps the most beloved liberal in the history of the Senate with a candidate that believes Curt Schilling is a Yankee fan. Because if this lady loses, the health care reform bill that the beloved late senator considered his legacy will die and the reason it will die is because if Coakley loses, Democrats will only have then an 18-vote majority in the Senate. Which is more than George W. Bush ever had in the Senate when he did whenever the f**k he wanted."
-Jon Stewart (Watch video)

"The FBI has released a sketch of what Osama bin Laden looks like now. You know, he's aged. It's been, like, nine years. So the FBI puts out a sketch so we can get an idea what he looks like nine years older. And I said, 'Why don't we put out a sketch of what he looks like when he's captured?'"
-David Letterman

"There's a new book out that says Sarah Palin was an ignoramus who believes Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. And I thought, well, no, that's George Bush. Wasn't that George Bush?"
-David Letterman

You can find more painful hilarity by clicking here.

Good-bye elections

So, the Supreme Court of the United States, by a 5-4 vote (are they ALL 5-4 now?) has ruled that corporations (and unions) can spend as much as they want on political campaigns. Can you say "activist court?"

Allegedly, they still cannot donate directly to candidates (this will be the next court challenge), but can spend whatever they want on whatever they want to say, true or not. Oh, this is wonderful.

There just hasn't been enough money sloshing around in political campaigns! The airwaves around elections are just barren of political ads! We haven't had billion-dollar Senate campaigns yet! Why not?!

I frankly see little reason to any longer give any money to any candidate. My dollars will be easily overwhelmed by corporate money. If you think you've seen a lot of so-called "issue-oriented" ads before, oh, brother, just wait until this next, and current, election cycle. We're going to see BILLIONS spent on ads. And much of it will likely come from special interests who just happen to have billions lying around. You think we have corporate-cloned-candidates now? Just wait.

Hey, man, it's free speech. As long as you've got the money, you can say whatever you want. Phony or not. Money=speech, so says the courts. If you don't have any money, well, just SFTU and get out of the way, and if you don't, we'll sic the cops on you to bust your head.

This is another manifestation of the supremacy of money in our culture. Collectively, we worship it over all else. All hail the mighty corporations. They can do no wrong. (Don't think about the current recession). Greed just scored a new address.

And don't give me this "well, unions have the freedom to put money into campaigns now too" bullshit. The Republicans (and some Democrats for that matter) have been hell-bent on killing unions for years, and are largely succeeding. Corporations will outspend any unions by 1,000 to 1, or worse. No comparison. How dare you WORKERS try to tell MANAGEMENT what to do!

I hope I'm wrong, and somehow our democracy will survive and rise up to reclaim itself. But hope is about all we have right now, and look how that turned out with Obama. Another slap in the face.

Family matters

The last week has been an exasperating, tiring one. We are now dealing with issues around my elderly father falling, hurting himself, and losing his marbles, not necessarily in that order. I'm sure that many of you have experienced something like this. Our bodies are far outliving our minds these days. It's horribly sad and hard.

I have been somewhat consumed by this situation lately, but will get back to the blog when things mellow out a bit.