Fahrenheit 451 Revisited: Blinded by the Light

I had a heated argument recently with a person I respect profoundly, a person to whom I have turned for wisdom and comfort time and time again. The altercation occurred following some gruesome discoveries I’d made that a large faction of the Christian church is still in the superstitious throes of the Middle Ages, and that it is still looking to kill heretics and heathens just like the good old days.

I’d heard about the Dominionists before, in passing, in Rolling Stone Magazine or something, but I was part of a progressive church family that welcomed women and diverse faith families, so I didn’t perceive the gravity of the threat.

So what if a few fanatics thought unchaste women and apostates should be stoned to death? I lived in a society that was stumbling toward civilization, with its own faults, but certainly moving towards a truer morality than we’ve known in the Dark Ages, where we debated over whether brown-skinned humans had a soul, and used sex torture to provoke witchcraft confessions from perceived adulteresses.

But you never know what will happen to you in a day, and the day following the inauguration of President Obama was by chance a domino that has knocked over a house of cards- a house in which I lived, but of which I was not the architect. That was the day the sleeping kooks and crackpots came out of the woodwork, and the dormant extremism of racist, sexist, homophobic Christianity rose from the dead.

Ironically, while their own henchman Bush was at the helm, their voices were not as loud. Their purpose was placated to some degree. But once a mixed-race black man of mixed faith backgrounds who cared for women and the poor rose up, the ghouls crawled out of the ground and into the daylight, much like Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

I won’t recount the multitude of disgusting racial, anti-gay, anti-women slurs I found in the body of Christ and in my inbox- I already did so in a lengthy diatribe about my crisis of faith. Suffice it to say, when anyone uses words like “plate lip nigger” in their threat to assassinate the babykilling president, you know we have stepped into a time machine and landed five centuries ago. But in my mind, there was no excuse then, either- we can always use ‘the times’ as an excuse to torture and terminate, and in that regard the times they aren’t a’changin’.

Horrified and regrettably naïve, I waded through a good deal of online and library literature, seeking what could possibly drive these people to such hate. I found it in the contemporary church. Indeed, I found it in the church yesterday today and forever. Twenty years ago when I first gave up God, I gave up the women-hating, women-erasing God. I discarded the ‘inerrancy’ fairy tale like a hot potato, as any thinking person must. Obviously the Old Testament must be filtered through the lens of patriarchy, for here some primitive scholars, at the cusp of pagan rejection, threw out all the goddess stuff and just kept God. Women’s divinity had to be swept out of the record in order to rape, pillage, and subvert us, just as we later had to question whether black people had souls to justify slavery and missionaries’ slaughter of those who had never heard of Christ.

The Spanish Conquistadors Maim and Kill Natives for Personal Entertainment

Rather than squelch my faith in Christ, the mystery grew huge and profound. No longer terrified of ‘other’ religions, I studied the fascinating sacred worlds of other cultures. I acknowledged how much fundamentalist Christianity had injured me and distorted truth and reason. But I was also thankful for the many gifts that knowing Jesus inside out gave me, in comfort, in peace, and in poetry. The Bible has shaped culture through much of history in much of the world, and I felt the intellectual and literary impoverishment of those who weren’t familiar with its stories, truths, and metaphors. I didn’t yet know that once upon a time, those who read the Bible were slayed by the church, for its contents blew apart the whole premise of Christianity as a religion. Not just the timeless truths of Jesus, but the moral depravity of the Old Testament- these were rightfully seen as dangerous to a strict faith.

Those who believe that all faiths are the multifaceted expressions of one truth are the only ones who are on to something. The idea that the right God revealed Himself to your church alone is arrogant and immoral, and the cause of most racism, sexism, hatreds, wars, tyrannies, genocidal atrocities, and even serial killings. In our culture, we are quick to say, “Yes, we agree, look at the Taliban!” But we don’t see our mirror reflection inside.

That’s because our own faith is always right, and the other is always wrong. Other religions feel like fairy tales, or matters that are anthropologically or culturally fascinating, but certainly not ‘real.’  Ours only feels right because we are born and raised into it. Even more arrogant and confusing is the assertion of my childhood faith’s superiority of doctrine- thousands and thousands of other Christian interpretations are misguided, misled, not ‘real’ Christians, fakes, posers, or downright heresy. Catholics are especially hell-bound, for they do not profess the doctrine of being born again, and their Eucharist is WAAAAAAAY too frequent, not to mention all those pagan trappings and Mary worship.

It’s the same old story, Christians killing Christians for being the wrong kind of Christian. If not killing, then barely restraining ourselves from doing so. Gleefully resting on the laurels of knowing they’ll end up in hell.

That may be, but what then of the fact that for centuries, there was no other church to bring the scriptures forward, to carry the traditions and beliefs in Christ into the age of the Reform? And after the reform, which didn’t limit the superstitious tortures of women or homosexuals, heinous acts born of ludicrous repressions, but did revive a most appalling Lutheran brand of Jew-hating, and add dance, drink, gambling and Catholic art to the already long list of deadly sins.

Those who decry syncretism are not educated or open minded enough to see the obvious facts: the Bible is a fascinating historical document, indeed, a very special book that allows us to see the majesty and light of love and the darkness of both humans and our gods. But it is in and of itself a masterwork of syncretism.

Fundamentalists used every weapon of Christian apologetics to attack poor Tom Harpur’s brave suggestions that Christianity has pagan roots harpooned in The Pagan Christ. After all, what date was Mithras thriving in? And what context did other gods raise from the dead? Forget the “pagan Christ” for a moment and think about the pagan ‘other’ religions. No one in the Christian spectrum would find it a stretch to call Hinduism, Buddhist, Voodoo, the various Native American animisms, Mormonism etcetera ‘pagan.’  We can see clearly when we look at ‘other’ faiths. The seeds all come from our earliest ancestors. Christians call those ancestors Adam and Eve. And so does most of Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Judea,  Egypt, and on and on…why? Because Adam means ‘of the earth’ ‘of the clay’ ‘of the dust’ and ‘first man.’ Eve means ‘first woman’ or ‘mother of all.’ The very first words of the O.T. were penned some five millennia or more after recorded history began, or 2604 years if you are so fundamentalist that you believe the earth was created on 4004 B.C.  And 1400 is the generous Christian scholar’s guess for the writings of Moses. They would love it to be 4000 B.C. but know the latest possible writing time is 1440 B.C. The scholars who aren’t ‘real Christians,’ many of them Jews, are certain the dates are more like 700 B.C. Either way, there is no possible way Moses could have known the entire history of the world up until that time. Oh, I know, but God told him.

You know what would happen if I rewrote history, even with my best guesses, and said “God told me to write this down?’ Same thing that happens to everyone else with this story. They end up in the nuthouse. I won’t say here that Moses didn’t even write the Pentateuch because that’s another story.

Either way, the syncretism of the Bible begins with the Creation Story. Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the Whale, Moses the Lost Prince of Egypt, the Parting of the Red Sea, the Sacrifice of Isaac…. of course all religions come from the earliest seeds of faith in our civilizations. The stories came from somewhere, from other books and from word of mouth.

Three millennia later, the Christian Dominionists are seeking to return to Old Testament Law. The newspapers are filled with scare stories that Muslims want Shariah law in countries where they have immigrated. But these Christians want a return to a mythical world in which they will have free reign to execute heretics all over again. Not just heretics, either- but those who work on Sundays, rebellious children, adulteresses, women who aren’t virgins, prostitutes, apostates, and blasphemers. Oh and heathens- that’s every other religion but theirs, including progressive Christianity. Oh, and homosexuals. Notice the mirror-like parallel to everything these people find loathsome about Islam. They want the same power for themselves, but with their own God.

So what if a few nutcrackers want to prove their almighty might?

It’s not just a few. That’s what I found out when my domino tipped everything I had standing over. Forever. Under many, many names, they rise. They have trillions of dollars and media all over the world. They seldom make their agenda known, though if you look, it’s proudly stood for. So proud that one of their many modern journals of faith suggests with a straight face and no irony intended, that the execution of rebellious children should take place by stoning, so the whole village can get involved.

And where do they lurk, you ask? The entire American home schooling movement, for starters- the aim is not just for children to avoid learning science the way I missed learning it- it’s also so that they never meet children of other backgrounds. It’s brainwashing. It comes from Rushdoony, the ‘father of Dominionism’ whose racism and sexism knew no bounds. The subtle objective beyond keeping kids from book knowledge is to keep mom at home. These groups also ultimately want women’s and nonbeliever’s votes rescinded, the removal of all progressive,

raise up a child in the way she should go, and when she is old, she will not depart from it

unbelieving, or heathen judges from the courtrooms, and the execution of homosexuals. Homos are, after all, the biggest threat to America. They’re just so dang abominable.

In my furious unearthing of these sick inquisitors, I saw names that were familiar to me from my childhood, and from my friend’s library. James Dobson, James Kennedy, to name two.

The friend was unconvinced that there was anything wrong with Christians hoping to evangelize nonbelievers, even as I told him that Dobson had no understanding of homosexuality, and his unwarranted fear was ludicrous. I suggested he hang out with a bunch of queens and get to know them. Far from being a threat to society, gays are I daresay a more evolved kind of human being, and they are funny, intelligent, and creative. They are also my community. Even when I told this person that these groups want homosexuals out of the workplace, out of the schools, and executed- despite the fact that most child molesters are straight men- the person still didn’t concede that Dobson may be wrong. Dobson after all knows that the man is the headship of the family, created first, and he must subordinate women and not be some flim flam egalitarian who talks with a lisp.

Okay, I’m putting words into this person’s mouth. But not really. His words were even clearer: “The Bible says it is an abomination to the Lord.” The fact that the Bible was written three thousand years ago before an understanding of hormones or diversity came up meant nothing to this man. A man whose intelligence I admire, except in this one regard. And even though I presented masses of evidence loudly proclaiming a desire for Old Testament law and public stonings, this friend said he just couldn’t believe this was accurate. If I had shown the same documents about Islam or Buddhism it would have been easy to believe. But when it’s your own faith, no matter how much evidence piles up  against it, you can’t see. Blinded by the light.

I handed this man a list of over 1000 names of religious groups, corporations, and media outlets that support Dominionism and still he refused to acknowledge that something is not quite right in the Christian church today. “I don’t think it’s true,” he said. “These must be old records.” When you can look at documented evidence dated from this millennia but hold on to the words of every Dobsonite despite that all of his learning comes from only one book at the exclusion of the rest of his brain is mind boggling. “I don’t think Coral Ridge Ministries is wrong,” he said, dismissing the possibility of even investigating for himself whether my concerns were valid, if hatred really lies at the core of someone’s beliefs.. “Their doctrine is sound,” he said. Sound to whom?

The bomb dropped when he said I was “obsessed with defending homosexuals.” I guess African Americans were obsessed with defending black people.

by his stripes we are not healed: whipping scourges of a slave

Obama argued with Dobson over the homosexual issue. If we should execute gays, should we not then execute rebellious children and Sabbath workers, he asked. Then he shouted out, READ YOUR BIBLE, people! The problem? Obama didn’t know that that’s EXACTLY what these people want. Complete power to shed blood, in the Lord’s name.

I told my beloved that, inspired as The Word might be, it’s still subject to the bias of its writers, who knew nothing of the next 3000 years in evolution, biology, medicine, technology and other developments. These were people steeped in paganism, moving toward monotheism.  They needed stories to explain the weather and the plagues, things we now understand more. Today we know that germs cause many diseases. We know that brimstone in the desert easily catches fire. It’s easy to see why early people believed “God rained fire and brimstone” on evildoers or wiped them out with sickness. They didn’t understand epilepsy or schizophrenia, and so they believed these twitching, muttering mysteries were demon possession.

And that’s when my friend said, “Some mental illness STILL comes from demonic possession.”

Once upon a time a man named Copernicus was tried as a heretic for suggesting the earth was not the centre of the universe. Many others who suggested variations on this theme, or who suggested that bathing might reduce disease, were executed for blasphemy, heresy, apostasy, whatever.

I personally think it’s a sin to not use the intellect we are given to expand and explore and seek to know. If there is a God, he is disgusted with us all for being so prudish, self-important and genocidal in his name.

I told my friend that I believe that instead of brainwashing children into being terrified of hell and hating heathens, it should be mandatory learning from every pulpit about the ancient and modern atrocities of religion. Not the demonic world of tribal cannibals or Indian elephant worshippers, either- but the Christian slaughter of Muslims in Sarajevo, the Christian slaughter of Jews in Germany (no Hitler was not an atheist), the Irish Catholic/Protestant burnings and tortures, the sex torture of women ‘witches,’ the hunting of native Indians for sport, the religious justifications for slavery. Perhaps these crimes were a little more abominable than being born gay or female.

To me it’s no surprise that some ‘demonic’ killers invent perverse torture methods

Ed Gein himself could not have dreamed this shit up.

to get off. They learned it in the church. Do you have any idea of the creativity holy men used to torture women? The rack, the anal pear, the hook, the breast ripper…This history should be required reading.

But it always comes down to this: “Those weren’t REAL Christians,” my friend said. When will we take our heads out of the ancient desert sand?

“With all due respect,” I said, because I truly do love and respect this person above most, though we have seldom agreed on faith matters, but I was furious. “Have you EVER read a book in your life that was not written by Calvin or Dobson or other theologians, a single book on mythology or history or archeology or Christianity or science that was written by a progressive Christian or a person from another faith, or no faith? One? ANY other book in the past 2000 years that was not ABOUT the Bible?”

“That in itself would be idolatry,” he said.

I almost tore my hair out by the roots.

Would you like to know why our world is left with this particular bundle of scriptures and a few odd desert finds like the Dead Sea Scrolls? What happened to the other scripture-like contributions, or simply the other books 2, 3, 4 thousand years old? There are some- The Epic of Gilgamesh (the flood story), a few ancient philosophy texts. But not many. The church destroyed them. They didn’t want anyone to think in other possibilities. So much for free will. I said that Christians destroyed most mythic and historical literature, as well as divergent Christian thinking, and secular histories, as well as other Scriptures.  My friend didn’t believe me. “You can’t know that,” he said.

That’s the danger of burning books, and of not reading them. I CAN know this, though few people know it, or to what extent it took place. Priceless records that could tell us more about our world, our past, gone forever. It’s not a fairy tale. Early theologians gloated and glowed in their letters about the destruction of literature. Today we still burn books, and rock’n’roll records in churches- rock, often a portrait of dissent and protest- and we still censor science and history from our schools and churches. Christians in 2009 still find the two interracial sex scenes and the water-rod divining fantasy in Margaret Laurence’s brilliant The Diviners worthy of censorship. Christians still make a big to do about how Harry Potter and The Golden Compass books are homo-promo witchcraft and wizardry, though witchcraft and wizardry are now and have always been fantasy stories just like these.

Of course, defenders of the faith contest Christian vandalism- James Hannam presents a convincing argument that none of it ever happened. Like all other writers of Christian apologetics, including Lee Strobel, one might be convinced if their knowledge is limited. But if they have studied and learned from a wide variety of sources, they know apologists are masters of selective citations and of whitewashing history. There are plenty of Christian thinkers and philosophers who acknowledge the past and the present. They do not have to burn or banish contrary books to retain their faith. It is not threatened by learning or experience. It comes from and transcends through the ancient documents which illuminate it. Their predecessors may have been monsters, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It is not these willing thinkers in Christian faith whom I denounce, those Christians like myself who are not afraid of reality, but the unreasonable literalists who insult the intelligence of their God along with ours.

You can blame the world’s problems on sin, homosexuality, abortion, women, or westernization all you want, but this kind of bullheaded attitude is actually the root of all evil. It pains me to say so about someone I love, but if this person is free to blame the world’s problems on my homosexual lifestyle, I must be free to speak the truth. “The Bible said so,” whatever that culture’s Bible is has given rise to unspeakable crimes of war, rape, slavery, racism, murder, torture, ignorance and stunted intellectual development we have.

Primitive mythology, which was largely figurative as a way to explore and explain the world, would not have stunted our evolution this much. Indeed, even those peoples like the Aztec or Maya who were still practicing human sacrifices had

not the last vestige of human sacrifice rituals by a long shot....God told susan smith to sacrifice her babies, too, so why did she end up in psychiatric treatment in jail instead of on our lists of obedient Christians?

breathtaking knowledge in science and technology. And what did Christians do? The same as they did throughout history, to make it look like theirs is the only book ever written. They destroyed the libraries. Destroyed the books, the priceless mathematics and astronomies and histories.

Reading is, after all, idolatry.

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Visit writer Lorette C. Luzajic at www.thegirlcanwrite.net.

The Pope Hates Babies

orange, beige, and green countries abortion is illegal except for health or rape. slate blue is either by demand, or demanded by government, like it or not.

Unlike Sinead O’Connor, I’ve always kept my mouth shut on pope stuff because I don’t think I can change a tradition of centuries and because all humans, including the upper crust of church elite, are fallible and unable to carry out the truth of Christ, anymore than I am able to.

But now I’m going to come right out and say it- can the Pope please shut up? SHUT UP!

Honestly, you can stop yapping about the tragedy of abortion until you start handing out contraception the world over, and absolve your followers of this ‘crime.’ The real crime, the real murder here, is forcing impoverished women, now and through history, to dozens of children that suffered and starved. You punished women who were too sick or frail or exhausted or poor to have another child to death with more pregnancy, leaving orphans all over the papist world and further afar. At least the Protestants, who broke away from the ridiculous notion of your infallibility, are responsible enough to advocate contraception. And how many bastard children has your lineage fathered? Want me to start counting? Just how is that infallible?

I’ll continue, “deigning to remain neutral” on the abortion question because it’s an explosive, tragic, emotional thing for everyone, best avoided. However, it may be a necessary evil, the least suffering and the least death, especially in the third world. That said, there would be less need if you would okay contraception. I don’t think the sick, hungry, homeless women are thrilled about the next bundle of joy when they’re late for their period again. Stop the suffering and get them some contraception!

This whole brouhaha with the Pope and the Right and the babykiller Prez is a farce. Do you know much about the so-called babykilling law Obama changed? Thought so. Headlines like ‘Okays babykilling worldwide’ with sad photos have great emotional impact, but how about using your head along with your heart, and thinking about what is going on here.

Ok, you’ve already got abortion in the States, so there’ s NO CHANGE THERE. That’s not Obama’s law. It’s been in effect for 36 years. So what’s this new thing then?

Obama CANNOT change abortion laws in other countries. So he has not magically made
babykilling possible all over the world. Just who do you guys think he is- the devil, just because he’s black? Thought so.

If you look at a map of abortion policies around the world, you’ll see that few hand out the service freely. Most provide abortion if the mother’s life is in danger. Poor mothers die all the time during childbirth, and millions more are injured and sick and unable to mother her other children. Then, some of those children are sold as sex slaves, or labour slaves. I’m not kidding. Do some research. So which evil is greater? Death, orphaning, prostitution and starvation? Or saving the mom’s life and hence her other children’s? Now here we’re only talking about sick or poor women whose life is at risk. Remember, most countries don’t give out abortion just because Mom really tied one on and got jiggy with some rock star on tour through desert Africa.

Because family planning clinics in the third world SOMETIMES counsel or provide abortion IN THE KINDS OF SITUATIONS YOU MIGHT FIND ABOVE, the United States has during Bush and Reagan REFUSED to donate CONTRACEPTION cash to these clinics. So the ACTUAL issue Obama is changing is ACCESS TO BIRTH CONTROL.

So do the math. EVEN IF YOU HATE ABORTION, there will be less abortion and less death by providing the birth control that we have been withholding. So no matter where one stands on the ‘life versus choice’ spectrum, all parties are best served, including babies and children, by providing contraception services to women who desperately need it. At least the right-wingers believe in contraception, and they rightly don’t want abortion used as birth control. So let the people USE BIRTH CONTROL. That’s what this issue is all about, actually.

In extreme cases of poverty, mothers have no choice but to sell off a girl child into prostitution or child slavery in order to feed the others. THIS IS NOT RARE. In others, desperate parents throw their children away, hoping someone else will find him or her and care, or that her death will be quick and less suffering than a life of poverty. In other cases, whole populations of sick children are called ‘untouchables’ or something equivalent, and roam around like stray dog packs, starving, and no one can help them. These cases of suffering are best prevented with contraception. There is no mother who is ‘evil’ and wants this! This is the horrible result of not having access to birth control.

Just look at the world map. Don’t take mine or wikipedia’s word for this map, either; you can do your own research to verify. Generally speaking, this map looks to be more or less accurate. There are some large patches of land covered in blue- abortion on demand. The States, Canada, places in Europe like France and Germany which are unlikely going to need Obama’s foreign AID for contraceptive outreach, Russia, Eastern Europe (yet there are still millions of war-rape ethnic infiltration babies in orphanages, starving, emotionally starving, waiting for you to stop bitching and start adopting), China, Cambodia, Korea.

The latter few are deceiving. It’s not in the woman’s court here, either, despite how it appears. There are various laws enforcing women to abortion at the government’s whim.

In India and a few parts of the southern African content, abortion is available only for rape, mother’s health, poverty, and fetal defects or health. Another handful of countries shows up dark brown, the same as above but not for poverty- so mother’s health, rape, and fetal health.

You’ll notice that MOST OF SOUTH AMERICA AND AFRICA, the two continents likely to receive the most of Obama’s aid, show abortion to be ILLEGAL except in cases of maternal or fetal health, and a few expand this to include rape. Keep in mind that the definition of rape in tribal or Muslim Africa is not going to be something like “drunk at sorority party, too many root beer kahlua shooters, don’t know what happened.”

So clearly, the majority of Obama’s ‘babykilling’ dollars will go to get contraception to those who need it desperately, despite what the pope says. When you remove your emotional upset, and of course it is upsetting to think your tax dollars are going out into the world to murder children, but now that you think about it, you see that the real sin was withholding birth control from impoverished nations and mothers who desperately don’t want to get pregnant again because they are sick or poor or have hungry children already. Contraception will save countless lives from death and also from suffering. In most cases, there will be no abortion unless maternal or fetal health are at risk.

Just for the record, I do believe abortion is a necessary evil, and not something to be taken lightly. I do not support ‘partial birth abortions.’ Clearly, if the child is capable of living without its mother, it becomes a separate issue. The issue as a whole would be best avoided altogether, and THAT IS WHY THE POPE HAD BETTER START ADVOCATING BIRTH CONTROL ALL OVER THE WORLD. How dare he perpetuate the notion that birth control is a sin? This is direct abuse and battery of mother and resulting children. In many cases, it is murder, once a life comes into being. Intentional motherhood would be a much happier kind for women who currently have no options but a constant cycle of birthing, watching their children die, being sick and pregnant, death.

Do you think I’m exaggerating? Do you have any idea what kind of hell people have to live and die through out in the world? Think about it. Research it. Imagine how thrilled you would be to find out you are pregnant again in Malawi, where almost everybody has AIDS. Or in refugee lines in Darfur. “Oh, honey, I have some great news to tell you…just after the three day wait for a porridge dinner!” Or your entire village and farms have been destroyed by a tsunami and your husband, the breadwinner, lost his arms and legs in the storm. “Darling, we’ll soon have a new addition to our family!”

Or is it just that you don’t care about Latin or African children, like so many of your blogs say…after all, it’s their own damn fault they’re so poor, right?

The question I pose to the ignorant who ban contraception is this: who is personally responsible for the pain, suffering, sickness, poverty, joylessness, hunger, hopelessness, and possibly the orphaning, – possibly the long life in hell if these heathens don’t convert to your religion- of each and every child whose suffering existence could have been prevented by contraception, along with that child’s mother and siblings and husband or partner and all of their pain and suffering caused by having a child they couldn’t afford, want, or were too sick to really have?

Easy. You are.

Philippine children begging.

National Anti-Abortion Day

Tomorrow is National Sanctity of Life Day- Bush (good riddance) chose the date to mourn the Roe versus Wade decision, legalizing abortion, 36 years ago. It’s been obvious, of course, since the beginning that sanctity of life is top priority on Bush’s agenda, and perhaps while he was murdering thousands of innocents, he made sure no one was preggers before he pulled the trigger.

You might conclude that I am pro abortion. But I doubt there are more than a small handful of people who are ‘pro abortion.’ It’s a very private tragedy that everyone hopes to avoid.

I’m going to remain neutral on the heated issue, because my own feelings are conflicting. I do believe all life is sacred, but I believe it’s most sacred to be loved or cared for. Regardless of my conflicted emotions, there are a million things you can do instead of hunting down frightened or desperate women at clinics, or holding up macabre placards. The woman you are terrorizing may be the girl next door, or your daughter, or your mother- for you don’t know, do you, what killers walk among you?

If you really believe in the miracle of life, here are wonderful ways you can celebrate National Sanctity of Life Day.

1. You can raise awareness about child sex trafficking. There are 200 children’s brothels in Angeles City in the Phillipines, for example. Many Indians are so poor they sell one child in order to feed the others. In an unfortunate side effect of Bush’s supreme respect for life, his war in Iraq, is the 50 000 Iraqi refugee women working as prostitutes in Syria. Syria is now booming with sex tourism. Saudi men pay extra for virgins. Perhaps you could picket for laws that call for life long captivity for the ‘sex tourists’ who walk among you. There’re some in your office or church right now, trust me. That would help cut down on pregnancies, too. It’s a win-win situation.

2. Fifteen million children worldwide die of hunger every year. You don’t need to argue over whether the fetus is a real person from conception or halfway through term- everyone can be certain these children are real people. Well, maybe- many of them aren’t white. Do they still count? Maybe you can give up one of your cars and buy goats and chickens or small farming plots for these hungry kids? With so many mouths to feed, some families are forced to send their children to work. Why not help out and get these kiddie slaves a paper route?

3. As the waste of nearly seven billion people fills the earth- most of it our crap, by the way- you might consider the sanctity of life in Vietnam and China, where the poor build toxic huts out of our computer waste. The chemicals seep into their water and soil, and cancer is rampant. Why not head over there and help child slaves sort through our ‘recycling.’ While you’re there, you can spearhead a few water cleaning initiatives.

4. A mom dies giving birth every half hour in Pakistan. Instead of focusing your hatred on women who can’t be or don’t want to be a parent, why not dedicate your goodwill, time, and money to these women who would love to stay alive? Babies need their mothers!

5. In 2007, nearly 20 thousand Americans were murdered. Why not get involved in projects that help mourning families put their lives back together? Volunteer at an emergency shelter for domestic violence victims, lobby for tighter gun controls, or hold up banners with depictions of splattered brains and bodies that say “Twenty thousand annual murders.”

6. Consider working with the organization of your choice to help refugees in Darfur. You can feed the hungry, bandage wounds, hold the hands of the dying, pray with lost children, and educate others on the political strife in Sudan.

7. Risk your life, the way women risk theirs to have babies, by working to free prisoners of conscience. Head to www.amnestyusa.org for biographies of wrongfully imprisoned humans around the world. For example, Mpagi Edward Edmary of Uganda was jailed for 18 years for killing another man. The victim was later found to be alive, and Mpagi’s insistence of innocence was clearly true. Chinese journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo account to summarize a government order. He was charged with illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities and sentenced to ten years in prison. In Myanmar, military rule is the rule, and there are thousands in prison for their dissenting viewpoints, views you may express here at home every day. Ma Khin Khin Leh is a mother and school teacher serving a life sentence for organizing a peaceful demonstration for freedom. She had arthritis and lung problems, and would like to be reunited with her three-year old daughter. Your efforts for the sanctity of life would sure be appreciated by these people who risked their lives for what we take for granted each day.

8. There are so many children in orphanages without parents. The crisis is particularly monumental in AIDS-riddled Africa. Since every child is a wonderful miracle, how about helping these children get medicine, and find them adoptive parents? Imagine what could be achieved if all the time you all spend picketing the clinics could be spent INSIDE clinics in Africa, caring for dying, orphaned children? Miracles would indeed happen! If you still aren’t quite certain that little black children are quite as miraculous and sacred as white ones, there are plenty of unwanted children in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary, white as snow! These little

child with downs syndrome tied to a crib for eleven years in eastern european orphange

bundles of joy are often the product of rape as warfare and bloodline pollution, and they’ve been dropped off when Mama was sick, maimed, or couldn’t bear to raise the offspring of her torturer and rapist. But she did the right thing, she didn’t get an abortion! And now you can take Junior off her hands. Millions to choose from!

9. Maybe you don’t want to concern yourselves with miracle blessings so far away. You can act right here at home to rally for the sanctity of life. Head north to some Indian reservations, where the unemployment rates can reach fifty percent or more, where we have as much tuberculosis as the third world, and where suicide has given an average life span of about 40 to some native Canadian populations. Why not share your jobs with our first nations, grow back their forests, and express your personal zeal for life?
10. Now, of course they taught you at the redneck barbecue that all inhabitants of the planet can fit into the state of Texas. I’m not sure that’s true, but let’s just say it is, and hence, there’s no population crisis after all. Still, the garbage, pollution, and sewage from nearly seven billion, which will double before long, is a lot to handle. Because every single one of the seven billion we’ve got already is a joyous miracle of life, I know you want to be sure of the quality of the soil that will feed us, and that the supply of water will go around. That’s why you’re committing to population control. Of course you’re smarter than the propaganda that insists we’ve got the opposite problem on our hands- declining growth. Even the dim or the differently abled know that two billion in 1930 skyrocketing into nearly 7 billion today is a population exponentially exploding. In 2006, there were 76 million new special deliveries, and not enough adorable onesies to go around! So instead of concerning yourself obsessively with women who are not able to feed another mouth, reach out with contraception in countries word-wide where women would love to stop reproducing. Don’t you always wonder why the coloureds don’t stop having babies? It’s time you had a little heart to heart with the men over there who won’t take no for an answer. Where people don’t have access to contraception, you can make a difference!

11. It’s totally understandable that you want to share your enthusiasm for the miracle of life with others. So when your church wants to make a little graveyard or chart to post online with hundreds of little white crosses, maybe you can contribute in a a very special way. Get out your magic markers and scissors and make 82 cut-out angels, and then repeat 365 times. Waterproof them, and then tie them to trees in a public park, so that people can honour and remember the annual travesty of suicides right here at home in the USA. That’s right, about 82 people can’t take it anymore, every single day of the year. Be proactive! Instead of just honouring their beautiful blessing of a life, hang out around bridges and offer brochures about life’s sweet blessings to any distressed-looking passers by. Or, seriously, get on board at your youth suicide hotline and keep gay youth and pregnant teenage girls alive.
12. There are many other ways that you can put your money where your mouth is and give more than lip service to the sanctity of life. Celebrate today by feeding the hungry, advocating adoption, inviting the homeless on your street to move into your basement or spare guest room. Give street kids a place to shower and shoot up safely- always keep a stock of clean needles handy just in case. Help them get back home by calling Pops and giving him a good stern warning to keep his paws off of his bundle of joy, then send her on her way with a nice bologna sandwich. Commit to weekly babysitting for moms who are too poor to get a sitter- you’ll help Mom get a part time job and care for the baby she nobly brought into the world despite the odds.

And because contraception is not 100 per cent effective, even with your wife, and because your attention is tied up with the seven billion precious miracles on the planet, you must commit to never, ever, ever having sex unless she desperately wants a child right now. See how easy it is for everyone to pitch in?

No, I’m NOT kidding.

Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org

Help Romanian orphans http://www.heartsacrossromania.org

http://www.feedthehungry.org

http://www.helpstopchildslavery.org

http://www.notforsalecampaign.org

Help child prostitutes at home and worldwide. http://www.ahavakids.org