Cafeteria Christianity (2)

I recently heard someone say that on the subject of homosexuality, the Bible clearly says what it says. How, then, does it not say what it says on subjects ranging to slavery to the treatment of rape victims to remarriage after divorce? There must be some special Bible teaching, discernible only by the initiated, that says that the Bible counts only when it can be invoked against the unholy trinity of abortion, homosexuality, and modern science.

Cafeteria Christianity

Ever notice that the Christians who cite a literalistic reading of Scripture against homosexuality love to reinterpret or just plain ignore their own holy book on subjects ranging from slavery to polygamy to the status of women? Do they regard the Bible as God's Word, yes or no? If they pick and choose, then their ultimate authority in matters of faith is their standard for picking and choosing, not the Bible itself.

This applies to salad-bar versions of any religion, but Christians seem especially prone to picking and choosing. Fluffy-bunny liberal Christians do it; so do fire-and-brimstone conservative Christians. A good reading of this site might help them.

Welcome to Collectopia (Collectivist Utopia).

We've heard a lot about the failure of individualism and the need for government to exercise greater control in the name of the collective good. To further that end, I have the following suggestions for moving our society in the direction of a collectivist utopia.

Separation of church and state: This is tantamount to privatization of religion, and we all know that privatization is very bad. Moreover, everyone knows that large, complicated organizations such as churches cannot be maintained through voluntary donations. We should therefore institute a taxpayer-supported state church, or at least make tithing compulsory and administered by the IRS.

Freedom of speech and of the press: Did the political correctness of the eighties and nineties mean nothing? There is just no such thing as freedom of speech or of the press. Therefore, to bring news reporting into line with the collective good, we should nationalize the media, preferably in time to hand them over to the next Republican President as a turnkey operation.

Reproductive freedom: The idea that a woman as an individual has a right to make choices over her own body is libertarian and therefore wrong. Ayn Rand believed it, and you don't want to agree with her, do you? Furthermore, population pressure obviously affects the collective good of the collective whole. Therefore, the government should have free rein to compel you to have a child or to prevent you from doing so.

Marriage: This one is too obvious even to require stating.

Reality shows that I'd watch

• Postmodernists and young-earth creationists move to a remote, primitive village and live without the benefits of that nasty old modern science that they so disdain.
• Social conservatives move to an Islamic theocracy that has not been tarnished by the concept of constitutionally protected individual liberty.
• Twinks move to a community where everyone, including those who do the useful work in the community, is a twink.
• Ditto with lesbian separatists.
  

Open mouth, insert foot

Sometimes we need to know when to shut up. Carrie Prejean isn't the first otherwise completely forgettable person whom an activist hasn't transformed into a right-wing martyr. The situation is like that of a celebrity whose publicist pays people to dress up as bishops and denounce her, except that some activists seem to want to perform that service for free.

The "blue" state of Maryland

The Washington Blade has run an article on those Democrats hindering LGBT progress in that "blue" state (quotation marks in the original). Having grown up in Maryland, I am always surprised that people should expect Maryland to be more socially liberal than it is.

Yes, Marylanders are fiscally liberal, but they are also deeply socially conservative. They are not consistently liberal or consistently conservative, but instead consistently statist, which leads to conservative social views. Maryland was ahead of the game in enacting a "defense of marriage" law and behind in getting rid of everything from a state board of motion-picture censors to sodomy laws.

One need only consider the makeup of Maryland's voters to see why. Maryland "liberalism" comprises Catholic liberalism, blue-collar liberalism, government workers' liberalism, and African-American liberalism, none of which is exactly known for being socially liberal, particularly on LGBT issues.

Marylanders pride themselves on their liberalism. Yet people from elsewhere consider Maryland to be a right-of-center backwater with some strange ideas as to what constitutes liberalism, and with good reason.

No game-players, please.

People like to accuse one another of playing games, but game-playing, like judicial activism, is whatever we don't like.  Someone once called me a game-player for refusing to submit to barebacking.  So sorry, but I hadn't been put on notice that remaining alive was a game.  Ironically, it seems that calling someone a game-player is itself a form of game-playing.