Onward Christian Soldiers

Onward Christianist Soldiers.

Christianist extremists continue their march forward. Damn the constitution. Damn the First Amendment. Damn individual freedom. Eternal souls are at stake and no repression too much.

Consider the case of art teacher Sydney McGee who has been teaching art for the last 28 years of her life. She took a group of students from the Fisher Elementary School in Frisco, The Theocratic Republic of Texas, to an art museum in Dallas. All the children had signed parental permission slips to take the field trip

Apparently some parents became upset. The art museum had a nude statue. Who would have thought! What outrage! An art museum with art. Why Baby Jesus must be weeping at the thought.

McGee was put on paid administrative leave which means she is not allowed to teach. And she has been told that when her contract expires it will not be renewed. The jerks who run the school have refused to comment on their silly action. But they made sure that McGee’s web page at the school website was dismantled as well.

Petty minded idiots on the march. But God must be cheering.

In another corner of pathetic Texas, the theocracy that gave the world George Bush, some brain-dead parent is crying that his daughter was given the book Fahrenheit 451 to read in class. Now remember this is a story about a dictatorial society where all books are burned. It’s a classic story. But in Texas they like burning books.

One little brownshirt Christianist in the school started reading the book and then refused to go further because, as the she put it, “the cussing in it and the burning of the Bible.” Duh! The little moron didn’t seem to get that all books are destroyed in the story. It’s not just an attack on the Bible but Christianists have an inability to think beyond the immediate. She went home to equally moronic parents, she obviously learned her intolerance from them and inherited their intelligence. Daddy complained. The girl was assigned an entirely different book.

Everyone happy? Of course not. Christianists don’t want the freedom to pursue their own warped sense of reality. They want the power to force their view of the world on everyone else. So the father, Alton Verm (I’m not making this up but it does allow us to refer to the people on his side of this debate as Vermins) wants the book banned from the school entirely.

Daddy Dumbest said: “With God’s name in vain being in there, that’s the number one reason.l There’s no reason for it being read.” In honour of the Vermins I suggest we all take God’s name in vain at least one time right now. God damn this absurdity! (What that good enough Alton?)

Students at the school, not inculcated in the Vermin household are petitioning to save the book. But the school board is now considering banning it because one Vermin wanted it out because, “There’s no reason for it being read.”

One student said her fellow students told her that this was the one book they really enjoyed and, “It really makes you think abou the situation.” Ah! That’s the problem. The Vermins of the world don’t want thinking they want obedience. The Vermins, are adamant that the books id “downgrading Christians” and must be banned for everyone. Note the book was being read during National Banned Book Week! Oh, the irony of it all.

Now we move to that other center of Bible-Belt thinking, the Theocratic Republic of Georgia. In the county of Gwinnett, in the town of Lawrenceville is a woman of righteousness, a God warrior, a Jesus addict named Laura Mallory. Her local newspaper describes her as an “evangelical Christian”. Surprise, surprrise. If there are books to be burned their fundamentalist nutters standing in line with the kerosene and matches.

She wants the public school library to ban the Harry Potter books. And why? Because having the books on the shelves discriminates against the brain dead fundamentalists. “I think the anti-Christian bias --- it’s just got to stop.” See, if they don’t get to control what you read then you are biased agains them. Notice how the fundies have turned into whinniers constantly complaining that they are the “victims” because their right to control others isn’t being respected.

No one forces Mallory to read the Harry Potter books. So there is no infringement of her rights. But she demands the right to use her theology to control what the students are allowed to check out from the library.

She opposes the books because of their “evil themes, witchcraft, demonic activity, murder, evil blood sacrifice, spells and teaching children all of this.” She says she has the facts from reading Christian web sites. Mallory says the books teach children “that witches and witchcraft and wizards and all this is just normal.” One ten-year-old child, far smarter than this evaneglical Christian wrote the school board saying: “The books never at any time turned me into a wizard or witch... and never at any timne did I think the books are true.”

The child knows this is fiction. But witches and spells and magic are part of the fundamentalist mind straight out of the Dark Ages. Mallory believes they are true. They do really exist in her world and thus for the sake of eternity burn the books. She said other Christians will rally to her cause and that they want the books taken out and replaced with fundamentalist works like Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series. Mallory has never read any of the Harry Potter books. She says that it “would be hypocritical for me to read all the books, honestly. I don’t agree with what’s in them.”

So what. I don’t agree with the trash that Mallory prefers but I don’t go around demanding that they be banned.

Mallory was right however. Christianist parents did descend on the school board demanding the books be removed. One reading teacher had told how the books got her students to actually want to learn to read. A Christianist, using inspired logic no doubt, replied, “I could counter that argument by saying any topic like ‘How to be a terrific terroist’ or ‘Car Bombing 101’ could be used to entire children to read.” What? You figure it out I can’t. This is just irrational.

One Christianist claimed she was a “former witch” and opposed the books. If you ask me she probably invented everything she said. Christianists are notorious at inventing such stories to bolster their case (see the post on Christian urban legends). She said that because of the evil Potter books her daughter turned to witchcraft. The local paper said she claimed this caused “their Christian family to lose friends, finances and their reputation.”

The photo is of Mallory explaining the evils of Harry Potter books as part of her drive to ban them. Let’s just hope that the Christianists don’t figure out that instead of burning books it is much more efficient to burn authors.

In these stories we have people with no real accomplishments in life except the ability to breed claiming a moral superiority over others. Consider Mallory. She is a housewife and not a very educated one from the looks of things. She is not widely read and not well informed. But with Jesus she is an instant expert. Her life is endowed with great meaning as she is now a key fighter is the battle between good and evil. She is saving the children. She is now somebody. Ditto for the Vermins.

I tend to look at this psychologically. The people involved find instant importance and self-esteem by undertaking their crusades. While they say it's "for the children" it's really for them. "For the children" is just a smokescreen. It endows people who are not even little cogs in a great machine with importance. It gives meaning to an otherwise meaningless life. And it does so without effort. You don't have to grabble with issues as the answers are handed to you on a silver Bible. You don't need to think since there is nothing to think about. It's one-step expertise on everything.