There’s just no way around it any more. IF:
- If you’re from Colorado, and
- if you’re a fundamentalist Christian,
- then you must be gay.
There’s nothing at all wrong with that, of course, and you should just stop living a lie and come out with it.
We should have known, I think. The bright lights, the adoring audiences, the singing, the showmanship…being a pastor at one of these fundie megachurches is just like having a hit show on Broadway.
“…being a pastor at one of these fundie megachurches is just like having a hit show on Broadway”–one that never closes–or at least until you’re outed.
Man, they really need to keep this up. Then maybe the fundees of the world will stop thinking of Colorado Springs as their warehouse-church Mecca, and they’ll stop moving here.
I remember when this was a nice place to live. I can’t describe how much sprawl has hurt things. Our population still isn’t high in comparison to other cities, but there’s something about the evangelical brain that makes them think that any restriction on what developers are allowed to do is communism. So, our population doubles and is housed by an unending sea of suburban hell that sprawls across landslides (so your tax dollars are going to rich twits who bought a house on moving dirt every time FEMA comes in to bail them out), sprawls over grasslands, sprawls up the Front Range, and is supported by the same network of roads that supported us when our population was 200,000. Oh, and because Rumsfeld is a blithering jackass who thought we should close military bases, those displaced units are getting sent here. That’s another 20,000 troops and their families.
And, in any sane part of the country, the state would keep up with the growth by funneling more resources into the education system. Not here. No, the funding stays the same, no new schools are built, and the number of students keeps growing and growing. Then they pass these dumbshit School Assesment Laws so they can just turn the public schools into private charter schools when they start doing poorly as a result.
So, I don’t just want a few gay pastors. I want a big evangelical gay sex orgy. Then these lunatics will stop spreading like a malignant tumor.
It’s the altitude. Colorado leaves you breathless.
Anoxia-induced brain damage might explain the fundie part, but not the gay part.
Silly PZ — don’t you know that where fundies go, there will be more closet cases than usual among them?
And suburban sprawl in Colorado — that sounds outright contradictory.
Anoxia-induced brain damage might explain the fundie part, but not the gay part.
Posted by: PZ Myers
The gay part is, of course, explained by being human.
I wonder if the career path isn’t just like TV newscasters (talking heads) do well in Peoria, and you just might get a larger market, like Milwaukee.
In the fundie evan world, do well in Conyers, GA and you just might get Raleigh, NC.
After all, is the talent requirement any different?
These megachurches are magnets for rubes. It doesn’t surprise me that the leaders are disingenuous con artists. These people are just waiting to get chumped.
I read a story in the Chicago Tribune today about one of our local megachurches out here in the Republican burbs. Jesus H. Christ, these people are stupid:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/chi-0612180006dec18,1,1216439.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
“Last month, with the Chicago Bears trailing in the first half to the New York Giants, Tricia Rieth went into her friend’s kitchen and prayed for a comeback.
The Bears won the Nov. 12 game 38-20.
On Sunday, Rieth sat inside Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington and asked again for the Lord’s help.
This time, she prayed for Terry “Tank” Johnson, a Bears defensive lineman whose bodyguard was shot and killed at a Chicago nightclub early Saturday, two days after police raided Johnson’s Gurnee home and arrested him on gun charges.
“I feel sorry for him,” said Rieth, 43, of Elgin. “I actually feel sorry for Tank.”
So did many at the massive suburban church, where congregants waited until the morning services ended before tuning the chapel’s two 25-foot flat screen televisions to the Bears game Sunday afternoon.
While members readied for an afternoon rehearsal of their Christmas service, many kept an eye on the game while they shared their thoughts about Johnson.”
So they’re busy praying for the Bears to win (because the sky god will tilt the game if you pray hard enough) but they don’t seem to have the time to pray for peace or the poor because Republican Jesus could care less about that. He only cares about stopping gays from getting married and killing Muslims, at least during half time.
It just keeps building. As if religion mixing with American politics weren’t enough, the Christian churches themselves seem to be o the verge of total collapse over the last 6 years.
You know, maybe people shouldn’t have laughed “Dr.” Bill Frist out of the studio for his assertion some years ago that AIDS was an airborne disease.
Maybe we should have shut our mouths and let the fundies spread that meme far and wide, to great effect after it mutates.
“Don’t go to church! Don’t be around the people in a megachurch! Don’t breathe Ted Haggard air! It’ll give you THE GAY!”
And later: “Anyone want a big, ugly, empty building cheap?”
As Tim Krider keeps saying (paraphrased), “How many of them have to be outed before the whole facade comes tumbling down?”
The answer, of course, is too damn many.
Thinking back to Ted Haggard’s confession, I remember thinking that all those people forgiving him maybe shouldn’t be such a surprise after all. It ties into that pervasive notion among Christians that they’d all backslide into perversion and murder and all that if it weren’t for devotion to the Big Daddy. See, if it can happen even to an obviously pious man like Ted Haggard, it could happen to anyone! Keep praying and don’t ever let up!
“So, I don’t just want a few gay pastors. I want a big evangelical gay sex orgy. Then these lunatics will stop spreading like a malignant tumor.”
What you need to do is to get some media blowhard to start complaining about “Colorado Springs Values.”
“Anoxia-induced brain damage might explain the fundie part, but not the gay part.”
Perhaps it’s a new method of pumping extra nutrients and oxygen into each other?
Ahem.
Sorry – about that – no, on second thoughts, I’m not….
Where does it actually say he’s gay? The original article says only “Citing confidentiality over personnel issues, Brendle would not discuss the nature of the sexual misconduct except to say it did not involve Haggard or a minor.”
Um, unless you have information beyond what’s in the link, it isn’t known that this person is gay. “Sexual misconduct” among other things, apparently, but that could mean something other than Teh Gay.
It sounds as if they’re doing a sort of purge at New Life Church in the wake of the Haggard affair, and this person is one of the victims. It also sounds as if he may deserve to be, regardless of whether his “sexual misconduct” was something actually bad or just a violation of evangelical taboos; one of those “other things” was “missionary training drill using fake assault weapons”.
I grew up next door to Barrington (and was born in Elgin). Believe me, at this time of the year there really is nothing to look forward to around there but the Bears games and a chance of heaven if you pray to Jebuz hard enough.
Dull dull dull dull dull dull dull.
They used to have the Bulls too, but since Michael retired….
Yup, no way getting around it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/theater/17ishe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
PZ posted a while back about some jesus-freak who argued that since men know better than women what men want, homosexual sex is more satisfying (he may have explicitly stated the converse as well; I don’t remember), and therefore if the ideas that homosexuality is alright and than having sex for pleasure alone is good became commonly accepted, people would become gay en masse, and the birth rate would drop to unsustainable levels (and civilzation would fall, yada yada yada…).
I tell you, never have I seen a clearer demonstration of repressed homosexuality in my entirely life. I mean, really, where does the obsession these people have with homosexuality come from, if not from the fact that they have to fight it day and night, in the hills and in the trenches, in order to stop it from entering their own lives?
There are other explanations, I’m sure, but I’ll wager that repressed homosexuality accounts for more than a few of these kooks.
Somewhat off topic but in case anyone is interested this is the result of the the foreign medical workers trial in Lybia. Not very surprising but IT REALLY SUCKS!
By KHALED EL-DEEB and WILLA THAYER, Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 12 minutes ago
TRIPOLI, Libya – Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted and sentenced to death by a Libyan court Tuesday on charges they deliberately infected hundreds of children with the AIDS
Maybe the good loving Christians of the world will speak out against this evil. What? This doesn’t qualify as evil and immoral?
Then what does?
Oh, I forgot to mention that condemnation of this verdict from a few rational Muslims would be nice as well. Not holding my breath on that one either.
…..Oh, I forgot to mention that condemnation of this verdict from a few rational Muslims would be nice as well. Not holding my breath on that one either.
Would you hear about it if it happened? Maybe if you went searching for it, but it would never make the headlines.
The thing is, these people don’t really think there’s any such thing as being “homosexual” or “gay”. They just think everyone is straight and those who have gay sex are “sinners”. It’s sick and very sad. I hope, as other have said, that as more of these cases get exposed, the system will collapse.
All this leads me to wonder, How is Ted Haggard’s reprogramming coming along?
And what’s the regimen? Stacks of Playboys?
“Onward, Christian Soldiers!” indeed!
Maybe those guys are eating too much TOFU???
With an “acting senior pastor” (or some such title) with a name like “Parsley” (any relation to Pastor Rod in Columbus?),how can they go wrong?
Shortly after Ted Haggard’s resignation, I was part of a group that drafted an letter to Mr. Haggard. In line with PZ’s comments, it basically offers a different perspective than Mr. Haggard probably received from his fellow Christians.
It is now on the net as an open letter. If you would like to read the letter or add your support, you can find it at:
http://www.letter2ted.org
OEJ
As if religion mixing with American politics weren’t enough, the Christian churches themselves seem to be o the verge of total collapse over the last 6 years.
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
Once in a while, I keep catching myself daydreaming about a Bizarro World, a Sliders-esque parallel Earth in which 14,000 people attend Parent-Teacher Association meetings every Sunday morning in spacious, modern school buildings built with community support. They pass a collection plate to buy supplemental history textbooks and fill a college scholarship fund, and then a guest speaker gives an hour-long lecture on the Children’s Crusade.
You may say I’m a dreamer. . . .
Silly PZ — don’t you know that where fundies go, there will be more closet cases than usual among them?
Brian X – Not sure if you’re joking, but that’s been my observation. I think if you’re really sheltered and naive, it can take a long time to figure out that a disinclination to mix it up with the opposite sex might be caused by something other than what a good Christian you are.
Blake, that’s a dream worth having.
Mind if I borrow the idea for my blog?
@JanieBelle:
Go for it! :-)
“How many more? How much longer will these exposes continue?”
There is no reason to think that evangelicals and their leaders have lower rates of homosexuality, adultery, dysphoria (of any other sexual activity/identity issues, normal or otherwise) then seen among the general population.
If you run the calculations, as I have, you can see the elders begin shutting down the inquisition and any further purge operations and reverting to the quiet comfort of cover-up mode approximately 3.7897 weeks from now.
Give or take a few minutes.
“Once in a while, I keep catching myself daydreaming about a Bizarro World, a Sliders-esque parallel Earth in which 14,000 people attend Parent-Teacher Association meetings every Sunday morning in spacious, modern school buildings built with community support…….”
That’s basically the model whereby Catholic parish schools are run.
Thanks Blake.
I really, really hope my Colorado Springs fundie brother-in-law is not gay.
That is absolutely the last thing the gay community needs.
You may say I’m a dreamer. . . .
But you’re not the only one!
Molly NYC:
Well, I am joking, and I’m not. The Jargon File refers to it as “ha ha only serious”, one aspect of which is saying deadly serious things and present them as a joke.
Not that funny, I guess, but my sense of humor has always been a bit arch.
BTW, I grew up Catholic, so believe me, I know a little something about hypocritical closet cases.
OEJ:
That’s a great letter. I did like the part about “Just think, if you were one of those eeeevil secular humanists, no one would have a problem with you being gay”.
Nuts. Now I guess I have to re-think my application for membership in the “RENT” Church of Christ there in Aurora. And they had such a lovely brochure. And window treatments to DIE for!
Blake, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but it is a question I feel I must ask:
Does the line for those of us wanting to have your baby form to the right, or to the left?
It’s not just because you know how to get out of Somerville (though that alone is a +2 to Charisma, you know).
-K.
How awesome is it that the guy’s name is “Beard?”