Quote of the Week

"They have a good heart," Hampton said of the men. (He did not address the question of how the men survive while sharing a crucial bodily organ.)

From: "Hampton: Religious Buddies Drove Ensign To FedEx To Mail Letter To Cindy"
By Zachary Roth - July 10, 2009, 11:58AM

I think the group referenced in this piece, "The Family," is well worth looking into. These are people who believe freedom of religion and separation of church and state is not only unconstitutional but unamerican as well. And they preach this bizarre fundamentalist view of the world where the rich and powerful are rich and powerful because they have been chosen by God, and they need to do everything they can to make sure they remain rich and powerful because they had been chosen by God. See Mark Sanford comparing himself to King David as another example of their twisted thinking.

I am an atheist, in case you didn't know. I am an atheist surrounded by true believers of one type or another, but far too many of the low rent version of the Family. I'm surrounded by the type of people that think it's OK to kill a man because he does something that is legal that they don't agree with. For instance, Dr. Tiller. Or JFK. Or Jimi Hendrix. Or John Lennon. People that will mass around military funerals with GOD HATES FAGS signs, loudly and hatefully informing everyone not with them that they are GOING TO HELL. The Southern Baptist Seminary is located here, a sprawling campus of hate and hypocrisy. A local landmark is the disturbingly huge Six Flags Over Jesus (or Southeast Christian Church) which yearly puts on a really mindboggling production of the Rapture. An entire hollywood stunt school specializing in flying people for stage moved to Kentucky for this thing.

It was much worse in West Kentucky, around Murray, where I lived from the age of nine until I left for college. The level of open, bared teeth white hot hatred from the "Christians" to everyone who wasn't with them went to the extremes. I can remember hearing of one church that split and how one church said that everyone but the members of that church were going straight to hell, but especially the members of this other break-away church who would be sent to the bottom-most pits of hell... and vice versa.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

These church members are mostly nice people but they're screwing up the world. In our military we have the most right wing extremist zealots filling entire posts in Muslim countries. The Air Force Academy is apparently overwhelmed by the kind of people for whom their religious beliefs supercede their dedication to the Constitution or the nation. Meaning they are beholden to their preacher. These are the kind of men that would paint "Jesus Killed Muhammed" on their vehicle, in Farsi! and then drive through the streets of a city, shooting anyone that shot at them. Seems oddly identical to the kind of bastards that would drive through a black town in Mississippi yelling, "Here nigger nigger" and then shooting any black person that dared to step to their door. It's the same people.

This is one of many reasons Obama should get rid of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy in the military. It will help to drive out those that consider their commitment to their religion more important than their commitment to their country. I've heard it argued we would lose up to 15% of our military if we got rid of DADT. I say good riddance to bad garbage. I'll bet we lost a similar percentage when we allowed blacks full equality in the military. That just destroyed the military, didn't it?

These people are legion and they all call themselves "Christian." Another change Obama must make to the military is the way chaplains are recruited. A Reagan-era (shudder) rule change made it possible for the evangelicals to take the posts once held by other Protestant sects by percentage. It's not right and it's not American. It is anti-American, and if there is such a thing, it is the Anti-Christ.

The Family is the perfect example of why I think the entire evangelical Christian movement is the Anti-Christ. For one thing the lines in the Bible about the anti-Christ seem to me to refer to it as a collection of many as opposed to a One, like Jesus. Secondly, the values of the Christian right movement are in opposition to the teachings of Jesus. You are supposed to give to those less fortunate to yourself, regardless of who those people are. These people, especially the Family, believe that God gave you stuff so you should fuck over people less fortunate than yourself because if they weren't such worthless trash they would be rich as well. To share is evil. It is against God! And thus they are about as anti-Christ as you can get.