Why I Hate Religion (Part 124923….)

So California churches are predictably up in arms about the possibility - if you can believe it - that gay citizens wouldn’t be treated like total garbage. As a result, they are viciously campaigning for the passage of Proposition 8. Now, preachers are calling fasting leading up to the vote. Fasting, in case you’re wondering, is a strange religious practice of not eating because God, who made everything including all of the food, intended for you not to eat…especially when gays were potentially going to end up with legal protections.

Just think what could be accomplished if all of these churches were capable of social outreach that didn’t involve hating a minority? People could be fed! Streets could be cleaned! Unfortunately, these churches only have memberships that can be united behind hatred of gays.

Because that’s all this is: gay hatred. To put that another way, if these people really care so desperately about the institution of marriage, why aren’t they campaigning to end divorce? Why aren’t they campaigning to limit citizens to one marriage per lifetime? Because they have no intention of protecting marriage through regressive means that might hurt straight people; they only care about marriage when they can dig their boots into gays. It’s shameful behavior, and these religious people will hopefully lose…

…and what’s this I see? Polling that seems to indicate that Californians aren’t being swayed by their gay-hating fellow citizens? Let’s hope this holds.

Michelle Malkin: Idiot (The Lipstick/Pig Thing)

What can you say to this sort of freak out when John McCain has done precisely the same sort of talking? If you’re Michelle Malkin, you ignore every other use of the phrase “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig” and act as if Barack Obama’s criticism of John McCain and Sarah Palin amounts to a classless (and in Palin’s case) sexist assault.

These people have no shame.

More: More from Ambinder.

More, More: Does McCain’s camp think the posturing will work, considering that the rest of us have Google and have found his own use of you-can-put-lipstick-on-a-pig-but-it-is-still-a-pig? What hell? Have some honor.

My Apologies

I thought my last post about Tony Perkins demanding that John McCain would take the socially conservative slice of crazy cake for the day; in fact, that is being claimed by a group of pastors demanding the freedom to endorse candidates from the pulpit without losing their tax exempt status. Here’s the thing - these pastors can endorse anybody they please from the pulpit, at any time they like. It’s just that by doing so, they’re agreeing to pay government taxes. Don’t want to pay the taxes? Don’t endorse the candidates.

It is amazing how the socially conservative - who regularly insist that the rights should not be extended for anybody else, be it gays who want to be married, or rights should be revoked, for women who choose abortions - have no problem advocating rights for themselves. We’ve had the absurd claim by social conservatives that religious pharmacists shouldn’t be required to fill prescriptions for morning-after-pills (in rape cases) or birth control (in any cases) if they personally object. Now, we’ve got this group advocating that they should continue to be free of taxation while getting to endorse candidates from the pulpit. Do these idiots have any shame?

If the rest of us are going to be bound by rules, these guys can be as well.

Douthat Decries Inconsistency…Inconsistently

Ross Douthat, who I read regularly despite disagreeing with, is right to observe that family is important…and that’s about it. Today, he asks us to participate in a thought experiment, in which we think about what would have happened if social conservatives hadn’t rallied around Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter.

Douthat concludes:

Hence the weird anger emanating from social liberals at the religious right’s failure to tar and feather the Palins and run them out of GOP politics on a rail: They’re mad that religious conservatives aren’t fitting neatly into the stereotypes that liberals have spent years cultivating.

A good observation, except for the following: social conservatives are only rallying around Sarah Palin because she’s their vice-presidential candidate, and they’d rather have her and her pregnant daughter than Barack Obama. Does Douthat actually believe that social conservatives are always this tolerant of teen pregnancy? Does he actually believe that social conservatives are always this tolerant of teenage sexuality in general? Does he actually believe that social conservatives are supportive of teen parenting? It’s not like Google is that complicated to use:

Here’s Carol Liebau on the since discredited teenage pregnancy pacts. And Doug Giles, calling teenaged moms “stupid.” And Jill Stanek’s more nuanced take blaming the governor. Or this viciousness:

Resurrect shame – deep, abiding disgrace. While you’re at it, whatever became of the shotgun wedding? Bring back the pejorative “bastard.” I don’t like it; it’s hurtful, but it had its uses. So does hurt. With hurt come hard-won insights. The prospect of bearing a bastard once forced a parent to think: Do I want my child to bear this burden? Do I want for myself the status of an unwed, untaught mother? Expel pregnant girls; don’t cater to them and kit them out.

I’m not combing through the sewers for this stuff - it is coming from leading social conservative websites. And there’s this clip of Bill O’Reilly from The Daily Show, calling Jamie Lynn Spears’s parents “pinheads” for letting their daughter get pregnant.

Look, it would be one thing if social conservatives came forward and said, “Yes, we’ve hated teenaged girls who get pregnant forever, but now it benefits us to be supportive, because to do so improves our chances for getting a Republican into the White House,” but of course, they’re not saying this, and Douthat isn’t either. He’s claiming that the social conservatives vile history either doesn’t matter or didn’t happen. Yet it remains clear to anybody cautioning a glance that this newfound embrace of pregnant teenaged girls is a recent occurrence.

Also, does Douthat believe that his people would have reacted similarly if it had been Barack Obama with a pregnant, teenage daughter? A thought experiment, sure, but isn’t it more likely we would have been subjected to a non-stop discussion of morality in Obama’s home, of the daughter’s promiscuity, and of the decline of the African-American family in general? Or does Douthat expect us to believe that his people would have rallied to Obama’s defense?

I’ve Been Trying To Figure Out A Way To Profit From 9/11

Here’s what I’ve been thinking. Seven years ago, America suffered an attack that shocked us to our core, rewrote the way we thought about the world (and the way the world thought about us), and forced us to acknowledge the fact that we were not beloved. The 9-11 attacks were the most shocking, horrific thing to happen in my lifetime. The obvious question now is, how can I profit from that terrible day?

Here’s my idea - let’s get a small, desperate African nation (like Liberia) to release a piece of silver currency commemorating the attacks. On one side, the text will clearly show that it is worth $20, and there will be pictures of the new Freedom Tower. On the other, the currency will read $9 and $11 (which added together equal $20). There will be pictures of the original Twin Towers. Let’s print “We Will Never Forget” on this thing, and how can we, because we’ll own a piece of currency designed to pay (get it?) tribute to that horrible day. We’re going to have to advertise this thing too, and I think we ought to include some footage of the World Trade Center right before it was hit by the first plane if possible. Then, we’ll sell these things for $20 a pop, plus shipping and handling, but we’ll limit sales to five per person. We’ll create the false impression that these things are even more desired than they already are. Once we’ve sold them, we will have profited from a terrible tragedy! This is a fucking brilliant plan.

What? Somebody’s already thought of this? And they’ve already got the advertisement I just described, streaming on its front page’s top right corner?

Well fuck me running. I thought I was really onto something here. Good for these guys though. The world has been desperate for a Liberian made, silver leaf $20 bill remembering 9-11 that can be yours, yours, yours! for the low price of $20 plus shipping and handling limit five.

David Vitter And Larry Craig Get Married

…wait, that’s not what happened. It’s just that accused prostitute visitor David Vitter and bathroom sex pursuing Larry Craig actually have had the audacity to reintroduce The Federal Marriage Amendment, a piece of horseshit legislation designed to prevent the gheys from marryin anywheres! (That link isn’t working. Keep clicking it. Maybe that will help.)

Honestly, the audacity of the Republican Party these days. These jackasses will lecture anybody about anything while continuing to do precisely those things within their own homes…or brothels…or public bathrooms. At what point does shame come into play? At what point does somebody say, “Maybe I shouldn’t lecture other people about their alleged moral failings when I have actual moral failings of my own?”

Surely people will realize the hackitude of the Republican Party, getting involved in these shenanigans despite their own moral bankruptcy. Surely this will drive Christians away. Or…you know…it won’t, because an awful lot of Christians are perfectly comfortable with this sort of out and out lunacy.

WABI - School Bans Facial Hair

New What a Bad Idea about a facial hair ban. Here’s more on the absurdity.

Podcast 2: Gay Marriage

So, the verdict is in: I really, really like doing podcasts. I’ve done another one, on gay marriage.

Get it here.

I have many more topics in mind. Feel free to suggest any if you’ve got them.

Honestly, I might do one every day. Or twice a day. I have no clue. They’re friggin fantastic.

The Ongoing Garrison-Bresch-Manchin-WVU Kerfluffle

Woo hoo! I just used “kerfluffle” in a headline. And just then again in a sentence. I win! I win!

I love my father very much. My mother too. They’re both fantastic people. Both want West Virginia University’s idiot president, Mike Garrison, to resign for his role in Heather Bresch’s illegitimate reception of an eMBA. Unfortunately, they’re not going to get what they want.

To believe Mike Garrison’s side of things, the following facts do not tell a story:
-Garrison got his job from Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s governor.
-Garrison was friends with Heather Bresch, Joe Manchin’s daughter.
-Garrison represented Mylan, a pharmaceutical company that currently employs Heather Bresch. (The company is owned by one of West Virginia University’s largest donors, Milan “Mike” Puskar.)
-Upon realizing that Heather Bresch had never actually earned an Executive Masters of Business Administration, Garrison’s chief of staff convened a meeting with several other higher ups from the University’s administration in which it was decided to pretend as if she had in fact earned it. This was promptly discovered, because predictably, the kinds of people who make it into WVU’s administration are complete morons.

Essentially, Mike Garrison wants you to believe that even though he can thank her father for his position, that even though he counts Bresch as a friend, that even though she is employed by one of the University’s most financially flush patrons, he had nothing to do with her receiving a degree that she hadn’t earned.

Let’s suppose I came to you and told you that story: would you believe it was at least potentially possible that Garrison had some influence over the outcome? Of course you would, because you’re not an idiot.

My parents aren’t idiots. They visualized the pieces, put the puzzle together, and can see the image: WVU is lead by an unqualified lunkhead who gives degrees away not caring a tinker’s cuss for the damage it does to the University’s reputation.

Unfortunately, West Virginia’s political aristocracy couldn’t give a good goddamn what people like my parents think. They have never cared what people like my parents think, or, for that matter, what anybody in West Virginia thinks. They always do exactly as they please, and play the, “But we’re West Virginians!” card whenever they get themselves into trouble.

For instance, sure, we could have had a qualified state treasurer to manage our money, but A. James Manchin was also available, and dammit, he was from the state! So we elected him and ended up losing $231 million dollars. (Or, you could have fun with Arch Moore, a former idiot governor who settled a $100 million lawsuit for $1 million instead, after the Buffalo Creek Flood. Actual West Virginians referred to the dam’s collapse as an “Act of God.” Instead of blaming the idiots who tried to dam hundreds of thousands of gallons of water with mud.)

Look, I love West Virginia, but would anybody seriously object if the city of Charleston burned to the ground with every single member of this state’s ruling elite inside? Yes, we’d be bad off for a time, waiting for special elections to replace the yahoos who currently pillage our state blind behind their constant song, “But we’re West Virginians!” But then, a week later, we’d have all new people, who for at least a time would be so uncoordinated that they couldn’t possibly be worse than the idiocracy we currently have running things.

As I said, I love my parents, but they’ve got to much faith in things if they think WVU’s president is going anywhere just because he’s a completely corrupt moron who does the will of his political patrons over the good sense that just anybody else might possess. Facts are facts. Truths are truths. West Virginia’s a painfully fucked up place, and this certainly isn’t going to be the scandal that fixes things.

Pictured above are ramps, part of West Virginia I like, one of the things I have to constantly think about whenever Garrison pops into my head.

The Worst Plan In The World

-I want to pretend like I have something important to write about, but I most definitely do not. My daughter just walked onto the porch; my girlfriend is laying on a hammock. Birds are chirping. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. The semester is mercifully over. Now what?

-Now my daughter is hula-hooping. The 1950’s are so excited.

-I’ve resolved on about a million different occasions to stop drinking soda (cola, pop, ect.). My failure rate thus far is a perfect 100 percent. I quit drinking beer, which had literally replaced water for me, but I cannot quit drinking soda. It’s a shameful, shameful addiction.

But I have hatched a plan, a remarkably stupid plan: I’m getting the words “No Soda” tattooed on my right wrist, also known as “my drinking wrist.” Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the fact of the matter is that I am fat and getting fatter. Cutting out a huge amount of calories from my diet has to help, doesn’t it?

-Before anybody proposes to save me from my stupid plan with suggestions like, “Why not diet soda?” please recognize that you are wasting your time. I’d no sooner drink diet soda than I would non-alcoholic beer. The point of these addictions is the delicious alcohol, or sugar, depending. I can’t pretend like those aren’t the things I love. Replacing one with the other doesn’t solve a thing.

-The girlfriend doesn’t agree with me on this plan, and has added another level: she is demanding I put in writing a promise to allow her to choose the coverup tattoo. She thinks I’m going to fail, so she wants to be able to punish me. But I won’t fail. I can’t. It’s literally tattooed on my body. Right?

-Speaking of Worst Plan In The World, I’m getting myself more emotionally prepared to start up the WABI Podcast, which is what I plan to call mine. What A Bad Idea Podcast, in case you’re wondering. I hope another one doesn’t already exist.