Have I said that I’m a big fan of The West Wing? Yes, yes I have, but I’ll say it again.
Using the Bible to justify anything is the beginning of the end for your argument. There’s so much evil shit in that book it chills the blood. It was written at a time when science didn’t really exist, when free inquiry was treason, and where superstition reigned. In the above clip, President Bartlet (played masterfully by Martin Sheen) decides to call out a bigoted radio show host by showing her the inconsistencies in her own argument – if you’re going to use the Bible to justify your hatred of homosexuals, you have to follow it all the way.
This is my challenge to any religious person who considers themselves a follower of the Bible – if there is a single Biblical law or prescription (even the ones that contradict the other ones) that you don’t follow (wearing cotton blended clothes, touching a pig skin, eating shellfish, sitting on the same couch as someone who’s on her period… just to name a few), please tell me how you decide which ones are worth following and which aren’t? By the way, I will not be swayed by the argument that the New Testament makes the Old Testament obsolescent – not only is that not Biblically-based, it is inconsistently applied (anyone who has ever invoked the Ten Commandments or Leviticus is apparently guilty of violating their own religious beliefs). If you apply some external standard of right and wrong to the Bible, you recognize that you are a better judge of right and wrong than the authors of the Bible, and that some of what they say can be ignored. If some, why not all of it? Where exactly is the line?
Wait a minute… bigoted radio show host? Gosh, where have we seen that before?
Yep, the character Jenna Jacobs is based on the real-life fraud (and racist harpy bitch) Laura Schlessinger. I thought that since we ran into her yesterday, it was a good time to show this most excellent clip.
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