However, Perry is about as honest as he is pro-gay.
Students are not being banned from celebrating Christmas. Schools are moving celebrations to afterschool activities so as not to cut into precious classroom time. Trust me. Every minute counts when you have to teach kids. It’s a matter of priorities. What is more important for children? Getting to sing Christmas carols during school or actually getting an education and having the party AFTER school?
Kids are NOT being banned from celebrating Christmas. The school has no authority over what religion they practice outside of the classroom, but the school DOES have a responsibility to teach children. And guess what? You CAN pray in school. Oh yes. If a school ever banned someone from praying, it would get in trouble with the ACLU and the whole alphabet soup. The thing conservatives are mad about is the ban on school SPONSORED prayer.
A school can’t make children pray or participate in religious-themed activities any more Congress can make its members start the day with prayer.
And it’s illegal. So are religious tests for public office, but that hasn’t stopped some states, including my own, from having them.
The War on Christmas should be renamed the “War for Christmas.” Conservatives want to make sure everyone follows their own brand of Christianity because if other faiths are allowed, that means NO one will want to be Christian, right? It’s kind of how making abortion legal made every woman want to get an abortion. Or how making same-sex marriage legal suddenly turned everyone gay in a couple of states.
Just remember this. Whenever a conservative wines about a war on religion or awar on Christmas or Halloween or anything like that, it’s because conservatives have a very weird mind-set. If something is legal, then it must be mandatory. It’s why they’re so scared of gay marriage. Rick Perry seems to think gay sex will be mandatory and he won’t be able to put up a Christmas tree if the liberals get their way.
Hey, Perry? We’re okay with you celebrating Christmas. And you don’t have to have gay sex. Just, for the love of all things good and decent, shut the fuck up.
Not shown? The smug contempt he holds for you and your kind...
June 17, 2011
I’m going to nip this in the bud right now.
Rick Perry is a moron and if he does run for President, I want the rest of the country to be ready. There are far crazier people, like Bachmann and Kane, and there may be dumber, such as Gingritch, but Perry has something the others don’t have.
A chance.
He has a lot of cred with right-wingers, and he has the backing of a lot of groups like the NRA. The Tea Party loves him. And let’s not forget that he’s actually more eloquent than the last yahoo from this state that ran for president. Before we even get to the primaries, before the ads run, and before people start wondering “Who is Rick Perry?” allow me to fill in the gaps for you, dear reader, and save you some trouble. And as you read these and think to yourself, “NO one could be THAT dense,” remember that Perry also once claimed that Juarez, Mexico was the most dangerous city in America.
Perry’s stance on a lot of things boil down to one word: prayer. Yes, everything from rain to protection from terrorists requires nothing more than getting down and praying to Pops, Junior, and Spooky. Don’t believe me?
He didn’t ask for plans for irrigation and water storage systems. He didn’t offer aid to the people struck by this. He didn’t even pitch the idea of a PSA to let people know of things they could do to help conserve water. The man asked his state to pray.
Now, I’m no scientist, but I live here, and I can tell you that it hasn’t rained in a LONG time. We’re dryer than a Hemingway story over here. We’re getting lakes catching on fire, and Perry thinks God will come down and bring water from heaven.
Shouldn’t God be doing this without so much prompting? I mean, it IS His creation? I know if my manuscript caught fire, I’d put it out.
Then again, Perry did invite the other 49 governors to join him to fast and pray for our nation to help combat things like terrorism. Five guesses how that went.
Maybe he needs to get a new long-distance plan, ‘cause Texas might be roaming.
Rick Perry jogs and, as the governor of one of the most armed states in the Union, he has a full security detail. Let me repeat that: our governor has a fully armed and trained security team with him when he goes out.
Which explains, I guess, why the governor felt it was necessary to shoot a coyote he found while on a jog.
The story goes that Perry saw said coyote and it approached him. It threatened his dog, so the governor, in accordance with Texas law, took out a .38 pistol and shot the coyote dead.
Sounds like a great case for being able to carry a gun, huh?
Except that’s not quite the whole story. According to Perry, he CHARGED the coyote after it had stopped with a verbal threat. The animal was already stopped in its tracks. All Perry and the team and his dog had to do was go in a different direction. Did Perry do that? Nope. He shot an animal and killed it. And where did this take place?
In a hilly suburban area of Austin. The man pulled out a laser-mounted gun and killed a wild animal like he was Allan Fraking Quatermain. That wasn’t approaching him.
We’ve already established that Perry is a man of God, a man of Faith, but did you know he is also a man who understands the nuances of economics and basic morality? It’s true! A few years ago, Perry made the bold claim that if the federal government didn’t stop trying to force these draconian programs, like much-needed health-care reform, he and his state would secede!
That’s right. A sitting United States governor openly threatened to leave the Union. I’ve already put my two cents in on the whole “We have the right to leave” business, but I think none other than the king of liberal snark, Keith Olbermann himself, put it best when it came to Perry’s threat.
With that being said, it’s quite shocking, then, that Perry recently asked for government aid when wildfires burned through the state. I guess government is evil and oppressive… until you actually need something from it. Then you’re entitled to it. Which is why he just had to bash the stimulus as unethical two years ago and why he had to nevertheless take billions in federal funds to plug our state’s deficit…
Yeah, that’s right. Publicly, Perry called the stimulus everything from Big Brother to the devil’s wang in our state’s bung-hole. But when it came time to check the books, he took the money anyway. Why? Well, we needed it! It’s not unethical if you really need it right? Unlike those freeloading welfare families.
The recession was caused by a number of factors such as the housing bubble and the banks taking far too many risks with no regulation to keep them in check. It’s a bit complex, but two years down the road, we can look back and see where the country went wrong. For Rick Perry, though, it’s much simpler than that.
God did it.
See, God wants us to be more self-sufficient, to go back to Biblical economics. I guess Perry forgot all the slavery and buying and selling people thing in the Bible, too, but that’s beside the point. Perry believes that the government should do nothing, that we have to fend for ourselves, and this is a lesson from the Almighty.
Coupled with the fact that he actively bashes welfare programs that could help women and children while he takes billions of dollars to plug a deficit he helped create, this only leads to one conclusion.
He has to be. It’s the only rationale for why he would be above the rules set for the rest of us. I had to borrow money from the government to go to college, and now I’m paying it off, but in Perry’s world, that makes me a slave. I have friends who have to use food stamps to feed their children. Obviously, keeping their children healthy and fed makes them evil.
But not Perry.
He can shoot animals in residential areas, and instruct people to refuse government aid while he instructs people to be religious and refuse said money themselves.
Even though his numbers are low in Texas, he’s pretty popular with the Tea Party and many Right-Wingers. And we all remember what happened last time a religious fanatic from Texas got into a position of power, right? I’m just trying to warn everyone. I don’t think he’d win, but then again, I didn’t think the leader of the free world would almost be assassinated by a pretzel.
Ever played ding dong ditch? You know, where you ring a doorbell, run and hide, and watch some poor sap go to the door and find no one there? Oh, good times! And as we all know, the appropriate reaction to seeing a kid pull a prank like this is a SHOTGUN BLAST TO THE BACK. I seriously hope they put this guy in the deepest, darkest hole we can find, then cover him in fire ants.
I’ve read through a half dozen copies of Norton Anthologies, and I never thought there were like this. Kids these days. Stop playing Call of Duty and read a book, you young punks!
They go together like chocolate and peanut butter.
February 21, 2011
Remember that Jesus taught us to shun the non-believers and turn a blind eye to their plight.
Or something like that. It seems a church in Alexandria, Virginia has opened its doors to local Muslims who need a place to gather and pray. This act of charity, two religions working together, is apparently too much for Fox News, and Mike Huckabee was quite vocal in his disgust to this arrangement between Christians and Muslims.
Got all that? How dare these Christians lend their church, a building dedicated to God, to the “antithesis” of Christianity? Islam is, after all, a religion that calls unbelievers “infidels” and stands for everything Christianity does not believe in.
Of course, anyone who has even a cursory understand of both faiths knows that they are much more similar than many conservatives, on both sides, would like to admit.
There are the major differences, of course. Islam proclaims Muhammad as God’s prophet and Christians believe Jesus was the Messiah and God’s son on Earth. Obviously, that’s going to be a big difference. Both religions have wackos hell-bent on genocide and death. Both sides have moderates who are people who wish to practice their faith in peace.
A lot of the complaints on the message boards stem from one major gripe: Would a mosque open its doors to Jews or Christians? Would Saudi Arabia open its doors to a Christian church and allow worship at Mecca?
Uhm, no. Saudi Arabia would very likely not allow Christian worship at Mecca… but that’s the point, isn’t it? Let’s say you’re a Christian. I’d like for you to point to the section in the Bible that instructs you to only show compassion and charity to someone who has done something for you. If you think that perhaps the commands to help those who need help are outdated or do not apply in this case, let me ask you something else.
Have we let Muslims built mosques in our country without accusing them of trying to spread terrorism? The Park51 project comes to mind, as do other instances where we’ve denied Muslims the chance to build their places of worship in peace. So I ask you again…
Have we let Muslims build their houses of worship in America?
The answer, I’m sure is obvious, is yes we have, but the Islamaphobia that’s spread over the country can have very negative effects. If a church wishes to open its doors and allow Muslims to pray, is that not the individual church’s choice? Is that not a way to show support for our brothers and sisters? If the members of the church are fine with their building being loaned in this manner, is that not the congregation’s call?
Huckabee went on and on about how a building constructed to worship in one faith cannot be used by people of other faiths. That’s funny because I’m pretty sure there are non-denominational churches. Chapels in hospitals and other places welcome people of all faiths, too.
“But Entropy Echo,” I can hear you say, “that’s not the same! Those are places for Christians, not for people of other religions!”
How many Catholics do you think would welcome Protestants to worship in a Catholic church? How many Mormons would welcome Methodists into their sanctuaries? Even within Christianity, there are schisms, so it’s easy to see why letting Muslims use a Christian church for their worship services sounds so outlandish.
But I repeat, what is the harm? Are the Christian members of the congregation any less Christian? A church is a private building, and if those who own and maintain it, along with the congregation wish to lend it for another use, what’s the harm? Huckabee made a slippery slope comparison that people might start lending churches for things like pornography viewings (he made it clear he wasn’t trying to compare Islam to porn, although I’m curious as to why he thinks both are so equally outlandish).
He says that if a congregation needs a place to worship, they can rent a room at a hotel or something similar. That implies that it is the people who use the space, not the space itself, that is important. He even says so himself, then backtracks when he claims that the building is already dedicated so it cannot house any other kind of worship.
It’s a building, people. Though not in the apocrypha, the Gospel of Saint Thomas contains some interesting sayings attributed to Jesus, and some of the more humanistic takes on religion I’ve ever seen from Christianity.
Verse 14: [W]hat goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it’s what comes out of your mouth that will defile you.”
Verse 77: Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.
Split a piece of wood; I am there.
Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”
If the building is just that, a building, and the important thing is the character of the people who go there, then it does nothing to allow Muslims to pray in a Christian church. Instead, it builds community and fellowship between two religions. It opens up the possibility for an exchange of ideas and helps heal the rifts being created by bigotry.
But I guess that’s too much to ask for when it comes to religious tolerance. After all, Jesus only helped those who already did things for him, right?
And speaking of the Beiber, here’s Mufasa himself, James Earl Jones, reading some Beiber lyrics. Alas, even the voice of Darth Vader himself can’t make this crap sound any better.
And finally, it seems even superheroes need a little help finding that special someone. Check out this video for Super Harmony, the only dating service that caters to today’s modern superhero. Take care, and I’ll see you all Wednesday
