Wingnuttery in My Own Backyard
Before I get to today’s post, I’d just like to say that on my stroll through Downtown Crossing this morning, I heard “Holly Jolly Christmas” blaring on the Filene’s outdoor speaker system. Yes, you read that correctly: it’s still possible to hear Christmas music in the heart of God-hatin’, gay-marryin’, Ted Kennedy-electin’ Boston. So please, wingnuts, stop threatening to sue our city– we’re really not as godless as you think.
OK, now onto today’s post:
Up here in Sodomchussets, I generally feel immune to the corrosive, deleterous effects of wingnuttery. Having spent most of my life in a state where lattes flow freely and nups are homo, I’ve gotten used to thinking that wingnuttery can only happen in those “other” states, like Kansas, Texas and Alabama. Indeed, every time some county in Tennessee tries to ban gay people, I let out a derisive chuckle and think to myself, “Thank Heavens that could never happen here!”
Well, not so fast. While we may not have as many kooks as Kansas, Massachusetts does have its share of right-wing crazies. The estimable S.Z., better known as the voluptuous headmistress of World O’Crap, is reporting that there’s wingnuttery occurring right in my own backyard, thanks to the efforts of a crakpot anti-gay organization known as the Article 8 Alliance.
To get an idea of just how wacky the Alliance is, let’s read their latest account of the violent persecution they’re routinely subjected to at the hands of militant homosexuals:
Homosexual activists terrorize Boston church during ex-Gay conference while police watch.
As hundreds of people from across Massachusetts and other states came to the Tremont Temple Baptist Church to attend a widely acclaimed conference on recovering from homosexuality through a relationship with God, angry and enraged homosexual activists converged outside to intimidate and terrorize them.
Just how intimidating and terrifying were these enraged homosexuals? Lucky for us, Article 8 has documented the attrocities with pictures of “some of the signs they brought to intimidate.” Here are the ghastly highlights:
My God. They’re lesbians… AND THEY’RE HOLDING SIGNS!!!!! I swear, if the Nazis had listened to Ani DiFranco instead of Wagner, this is what they’d have looked like.
According to City of Boston officials, they did not have a permit to demonstrate outside the church, use sound equipment or props, or block traffic for that purpose. Nevertheless, Boston police stood aside and allowed the demonstrators to do pretty much whatever they wanted. At times they even cooperated with the activists, chatting with them, directing traffic for them, and finally allowing them to completely block the street. The police department later informed us that there were no arrests, despite the near-riot behavior and the apparent breaking of laws regarding demonstrating without a permit and disrupting a religious event.
Ah yes, the “apparent” breaking of laws. Let’s hand the microphone over to the Boston Police Department:
Department spokesperson John Boyle said the protestors were expressing their First-Amendment rights. Although protest permits are required for large demonstrations, a permit is not demanded if the demonstrators remain orderly and on city sidewalks, which they did according to Boyle.
He said that building entrances were not blocked and that traffic on Tremont Street was not impeded.
The anti-war protestors who joined the protest already had a permit.
Yeah, but who are you gonna believe, the Boston Police Department or a bunch of paranoid nuts?
I give the Article 8 Alliance eight out of ten wingnuts for this fine display of insanity:
i always thought it was sadomasochussets. thanks for the correction.
Especially that ‘I heart me’ girl. What the hell?! That is some dangerous pride there. And we all know God does not heart pride.
I swear, if the Nazis had listened to Ani DiFranco instead of Wagner, this is what they’d have looked like.
Hahahahaha.
It’s funny how Christian it seems to have become to flat out lie about everything.
…meh, these holy-rollers. As my good, church-going, Catholic mother says…fuck ’em.
Focus on the Family: Racist Sexist Anti-Gay
The bottom picture is of protestors? I thought that was FoF’s advertising slogan.
World O’ Crap has a really interesting take on some of this right now, huge surprise, they’re playing the victim and whining to the cops about, well, you just have to see it for yourselves.
Like I tried to say at WOC (I kept getting a 403 error):
Endorsement of banning, silencing, and in some cases executing gays is nothing — NOTHING — to possible credit card fraud.
…I’m talking about the credit card story at WOC, that is.
What’s Article 8? Is that anything like Section 8?
Hey, I’ve found a couple more traitors who need to be added to the enemies list for offending Christians with their godless greetings. And all the way back in 1957, too!
Uh… yeah.
Why is it that I get the impression that if you rounded up all the Krazy Kristians attending that little conference (and the “ex”-gays, too), and the gay people protesting outside, and juiced them all up with truth serum, and asked them the following questions:
To the holy rollers-Have you ever struck a homosexual in anger?
To the gays-Have you ever struck a Christian in anger?
…that the affirmative answers to the former question would heavily outnumber the latter. But they’re more righteous. Yeah.
The thing that bothers me about these people is that they’re wasting so much of their time fretting about things that just aren’t real problems while totally ignoring real, intractable concerns that they could be working to alleviate. In fact, they’re just causing a whole slew of trouble for other people, many of whom already had plenty of troubles of their own even before these assholes took notice of them. It simply isn’t helpful or useful in any way. The religious right aren’t the solution. They are the problem.
Wow, look at that near-riot behavior!
I be they were wishing people “Happy Holidays,” too! Bastards!
Marq, that’s because dealing with real problems is HARD WORK. You know like actually feeding the hungry and housing the poor and adopting all those womb babies they’re all so up in arms about So much easier to bitch about imaginary problems, like protecting the sanctity of marriage by not letting gay people participate (huh?) and, of course, the FUCKING WAR ON FUCKING CHRISTMAS! But they’re still better than you and I. Just ask ’em.
They don’t get it, you don’t get it. Nobody’s against the people, it’s the sin. Romans, chapter 1.
If you have a problem with that you’ll have to speak to the author.
No need to talk to the author, of course, when self-appointed jerks speak on his behalf.
And on the issue of pride and presumption…
Watchman- eaten any shellfish lately? ‘Cause God hates those motherfuckers too.
“Article 8” refers to part of the Massachusetts constitution having to do with removing judges. This group wants to remove the four justices of the Supreme Judicial Court who decided Goodridge (2003 decision granting same-sex couples equal access to marriage).
Watchman- eaten any shellfish lately? ‘Cause God hates those motherfuckers too.
Which neatly turns you to the next chapter which he isn’t so enamored of.
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. Romans, chapter two, verse one.
These people sound an awful lot like Pharisees. I’m always suspicious of the conspicuously religious. I wonder what they’re hiding??
Watchman said: Nobody’s against the people
Nobody, huh? Seems there are plenty of people who are completely against the people.
And as for what the Bible says, there’s plenty of things in the Bible that aren’t so cool back then that are completely acceptable now. Shellfish, shaving, tattoos, sex while menstruating, simply “acting unjustly”, charging interest on loans, and even wearing blended fabrics (like cotton/polyester blends). Where’s the Christian freakout over those things? You don’t see people being harrassed as they walk down the street in a polyester suit, but somehow it’s okay to scream obscenities at a gay couple holding hands?
And for what it’s worth, each one of these things is called “an abomination”, rather evenly. So why why why is the Christian right so obsessed with who’s fucking who?
Watchman: what, so you’re directing us to Paul, the woman hater? Hates the sin, not the person? That Paul? Except he has that little misogeny problem. “We see the ambiguity of this inheritance manifesting itself in
the writings of St. Paul, who can, on the one hand, urge the
Romans, as a community of Christian equals, to work out their
problems together and communally and, on the other hand, invoke
his own special virtue, qualitatively better than theirs because
of his conversion experience, as a reason why they should follow
his advice and example, and see in him an authority figure.
This ambiguity, it is interesting to note, may be one of the main
reasons why St. Paul is a constant reference point for those who
wish to insist upon the authority of the Church (like St.
Augustine) and for those who wish to challenge the authority of
the Church (like Martin Luther).” http://www.mala.bc.ca/~mcneil/m2lec13a.htmIn other words, Pauls’ ambiguity is just PERFECT for twisting to fit just about any agenda. Riiiiiiiight…OK, thanks for playing!
Oh…and St. Augustine? – BIG woman hater (or is that just Original Sin hater?) I’m so confused!
Jesus hated religious jerk-offs.
Paul wasn’t too fond of us unbelievers either – seems just our existence could contaminate the righteous.
2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
Speaking of homo nups . . . several nights ago I had a dream that these two guys I know were having a Star Trek wedding (?) and Pastor Swank stood up in the pews and yelled “HOMO NUPS.” I thought maybe I should stop reading blogs after that, but I came back anyway.
As Onetrue above phrased it, I am “suspicious of the conspicuously religious”. But I can’t say it ten times fast.
We gots to link-up Watchman and Dr. BLT! Has there ever been a more appropriate pair of persons destined to be “troll buddies?” Why, put them together and they’d be a veritable anti-science smoothie! A Crappicino, if you will. I get little shivers of anticipation up and down my spine just thinking about it!
Speaking of homo nups . . . several nights ago I had a dream that these two guys I know were having a Star Trek wedding (?) and Pastor Swank stood up in the pews and yelled “HOMO NUPS.” I thought maybe I should stop reading blogs after that, but I came back anyway.
There aren’t enough cute internet acronyms that can describe how fucking much i cracked up over that.
Hol-ly Jol-ly, Hol-ly Jol-ly, Ohhhhhhhh!
You say “I’m gay and it’s ok” – I say “fine, that’s your choice”.
You say “I’m gay and it’s ok with God” – God says “I don’t think so”.
Watchman, how exactly do you know what God sys to someone else?
Watchman,
Next time you’re chatting with god please let him know that I’m sorry about the lobster I ate last year. I had just moved to boston and really wanted to try it. Also tell him I’m sorry I wore that cotton/poly blend shirt. I know it’s an abomination but it’s ‘wrinkle-free’ and ‘stain protected’. Can you believe that? I hope god understands since I’m a little messy and lousy with an iron. I tried to tell him myself but he wouldn’t answer back so I was starting to think it may not even matter but you’ve set me straight. So I’d appreciate you smoothing things over during your next chat. Thanks.
Don’t pay any attention to Watchman. He don’t know me from Adam (ha ha, I love to say that!)
(c.o. Major Woody)
Hey watchman, would you mind asking god to conjure up a ice pick that falls from the sky and impales Bill O’reilley’s face?In between causing disasters in Dover and california, for straying from his way, that is.
Since ya know, you’ve got a direct phone line to him and everything?
Brad, Schmoopie, WTF were you thinking? It’s Downtown Crossing. It’s the only place in Boston where the people are shipped in because they don’t grow them ugly like that in Boston. You just don’t see creatures like that except in the DC throngs. I also like how the bums go home at 5 PM down there, promptly after telling the white man his tie is nice.
Sad, little closeted Downtown Crossing.
Brad, please remember that the wingnuts STARTED OUT in Massachusetts in the 1600s. I’m a wee bit sick of native blue-staters patting themselves on the back in congratulations for accidents of birth, although that is possibly influenced by my having recently broken up with a Mainah with a distaste for the South.
While the Puritan folks might have been wingnutty on the question of religion, all similarity ends there. Unlike the present wingnuts, they were quite liberal in their understanding of the public good and how to achieve it.
Right on, Anne! Listen up, all you self-righteous “native blue-staters”: there are right-wing fundy freaks everywhere (yes, in your backyard), and there are decent liberal folk in the South. I’m from Virginia (where we just elected ANOTHER Democratic governor!) and my wife is from Alabama, and she hates that perception among yankee types. Don’t get me wrong; I love the people I’ve met from Up There, but please don’t knock what you don’t understand. Sometimes the only thing more frustrating than living in a Red State is the condescension from the Blue States. One of the reasons we couldn’t live there. (Too damn cold anyway.)
What are you talkin’ ’bout, Ben? It’s 4?F here in Illinois right now–it’s an effing HEAT WAVE! And, heck, it’s like two weeks ’til winter!
Oh, I take that back. Now, it’s 0?.
Wow, four degrees? Then zero? Where do I sign up? 😉
(‘Course, in D.C. it’s snowed a few inches already and it’s been darn cold the last few weeks.)
It eventuall got slightly into the negative tempratures, but at least there’s been a minimum amount of snow so far. Cold, I can handle. Deep snow makes things hellish. Haven’t had a really snowy winter since at least ’97 or so.
“eventually”
Whee! We got something like 4″ of snow yesterday… which, of course, led to that Southwest Air crash at Midway. Coming in to Midway, one does get an unnervingly close view of the residential neighborhood that surrounds it. It’s a shame that little boy in the car was killed, but it could have been so much worse. (I really hate snow, BTW)
Uh…Marq…if you hate snow, you could…uh…move? Sorry about the crash, though, but good to hear that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
I like how we’ve degenerated to talking about the weather, BTW.
Just found this. Spot on. And damned hilarious take on it, I might add…
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