Civil Commotion

It’s bad enough that conventions are cancelling, and businesses and rock stars are abandoning North Carolina, in the wake of HB-2. Apparently Tarheels are being banned from porn sites, too. Michael Hamar gloats:

Personally, I love it and find the move by xHamster.com to be a great way to play on the hypocrisy of the “godly folk.”

No Bruce Springsteen, no porn … just miles and miles and miles of Southern Baptists singing “Shall We Gather At The River?”

And it’s not even dystopian fiction any longer.

A Scientology couple fights ‘disconnection.’

The Joneses, from Las Vegas, were in the church for more than 40 years and have now begun a campaign called Stop Scientology Disconnection to raise awareness about the religious practice that they say separated them from their children. They want to “make people more aware of Scientology Disconnection, as well as hopefully entice those in Scientology to take that step of calling their loved ones, family, friends, or whoever they have disconnected from due to pressure from the Church of Scientology,” according to their website.

Disconnection is what used to be known as ‘shunning,’ and exactly what every other religion’s Holy Men urge when they insist that the pleasure of Our Invisible Friend is more important than your wedding vows, your children, your career, et cetera, et cetera. Healthy marriages and families are a threat to the cult’s total ownership and control and, no matter how loudly and often they rhapsodize about family values, religion can thrive only when it breaks ordinary, wholesome loyalties.

It’s that time again, the annual meeting of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. This year, I kid you not, they’re exhorting men to embrace their testosterone.

This is, like, a #hashtag bonanza. And that’s before we remember that Christianity is merely a huge machine for bludgeoning everybody it meets into craven, emphatically un-manly submission. Bah. Just another pathetic pack of cartoon characters.

Small town turns on Hastert as details of allegations emerge

The details, in brief, are that Dennis Hastert, formerly Speaker of the House, had what used to be known as ‘carnal knowledge’ of much of the high school wrestling team when he was its coach.

I know, I know, I am impossibly tedious on the subject — but do contrast that headline with the response of the typical congregation when it learns that Pastor Bubba has helped himself to carnal knowledge of the children’s choir.

I guess that is the distinction St. Paul was making when he said the Godly are to be in the world but not of the world.

[ SIGH ] … if I only had a nickel for every time some self-proclaimed Christian presumed to say who is, or is not, a r-e-e-e-a-l Christian.