Christian Leftist

The Los Angeles times reports that the religious right is fighting yet another war on campus battlegrounds across the country. They are freedom fighters–for intolerance, that is.

Ruth Malhotra, president of the College Republicans, argues that Georgia Institute of Technology’s tolerance policy that requires its students to be respectful of and to not discriminate against GLBT people violates the civil rights of Christians. Malhotra believes that homosexuality is wrong because of her interpreation of the people; therefore, forcing her to be tolerant of homosexuals (here used as an all-inclusive term) is in itself intolerant of her religious beliefs.

One does not need to point out that the Bible has been used to justify racism and segregation less than half a century ago. Jon Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, a gay rights group (NOT to be confused with NAMBLA, for all of you South Park watchers), says that if Christian conservatives claim a right to discriminate against gays, what’s to stop others from claiming the freedom to hate people on the basis of race, religion, social status, gender, etc? Jeremy Gunn, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, goes even further. He posits that “they’re [religious right-wingers] trying to devlop a
persecution complex.”

Malhotra argues that being gay is not the same as being African-American. Presumably, this point of view derives from an assumption that people ‘choose’ to be gay. It is not certain exactly what she said to this effect, but the College Republicans did send a letter to the Gay-Straight Alliance, calling their group something akin to a ’sex club.’ As in, like a strip joint.

This is only one instance in a large number of defiant actions the religious right has undertaken nationwide. Many of them also wear anti-gay slurs on T-shirts to high school, denounce Gay Pride Week at work, refuse to attend diversity training…the list goes on.

So, what do you think? Do religious conservatives have the right to be bigots?

Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are
back to make another buck off of their megahit Left Behind series, a collection of eleven (and counting) books that chronicle the events in “Revelations” from the Bible. Left Behind Games, a startup multimedia company devoted solely to the series, will soon releasse the first video game translation of the plot in the first book.

The game is an apocalyptic adventure with black and white portrayals of good and evil. Players must convert neutral groups of non-believers before the Antichrist’s followers do. The violence is supposed to be gore-free, and sexuality is minimal or non-existent. In other words, it’s Grand Theft Auto without the blood, prostitutes, and profanity, instead injected with more ambiguous morality.

Some fundamentalist groups think the game is too much of a compromise and that LaHaye’s company is conforming to the world rather than forcing the world to conform to its views. They want to advocate quitting video games entirely, I suspect. LaHaye’s associates believe they are providing a Christian alternative to the mindless bloodshed of popular entertainment.

Lock and load!

Speaking of games, basketball players from high schools like Lutheran Christian Academy were informed that the National Collegiate Athletic Association will no longer accept their transcripts for consideration towards the fourteen-course requirement necessary to win a scholarship.

I can just hear the religious right drawing in breath to scream! Hold on just a second! What’s that? All the schools offering up courses for credit have to pass a three-part requirement test? Who’da thunk it?

It turns out that the male basketball players at Lutheran Christian, for example, didn’t attend classes at all. They received credit for them anyway, though. Maybe that’s why the College Board removed LCA as an ACT and SAT test site, and why LCA lacked accredation, state oversight, and membership from a state high school athletic association.
Redemption Christian Academy in Troy, NY is facing the same problems and its principal is considering shutting down the basketball program.

The Easter Egg Roll. (I love how on the afore-linked news page, there’s a link to a video on the “phenomenon of peeps.” Back to the story: a century-old tradition of plenary indulgence for tots on a day of spiritual purity, a festival of youthful races and happy snapshots, and a sea of rainbow leis! Yup–about a hundred or so gay and lesbian couples gathered with the festive Hawaiian decorations to escort their kids to the fun.

Naturally, conservative Christian groups threw a fit, and several radicals (wow! Imagine calling someone besides a liberal *radical!*) stood by the lines to get in and held up signs and shouting epithets in colloquial (read: bad) English, as Jon Stewart so eloquently pointed out on Tuesday.

I’m not sure I approve of singling one’s self out by wearing a rainbow-colored necklace, especially if the point is to simply blend in and be seen as “normal.” On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to walk up to a couple and start a conversation only to have them toss expletives in my face. What was funny was that Bush only appeared for the Katrina victims and the VIP guests. I really don’t get why everyone couldn’t enter the lawn area for the speeches if the same number of people were going to occupy the same space an hour later. Maybe Laura thought the gay couples were going to chuck their leis at her during her speech?

Poor ol’ Rummy. He’s just not getting a break, is he? He signed up for absolute power, but all he gets is absolute chaos. To top it off, his office is only three downs down from the janitor’s. Now he knows how Colin Powell felt.

In the latest NYT article about the Secretary of Defense, Pentagon Memo Aims to Counter Rumsfeld Critics,General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tries to paint a rosier picture of the man five retired and active generals want to see resign. I’m willing to be reasonable when it comes to the criticism of GOP members, but Rumsfeld is the BIG excetion to that rule (Well, maybe him and John Ashcroft, who has faded in the twilight). Most of Rummy’s behavior, both verbal and otherwise, indicates a complete ineptitude so profound that it approaches archetypal Orwell-Meets-Dr.-Strangelove-trigger-happy images. Here’s a snippet/summary:

The memorandum begins by stating, “U.S. senior military leaders are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process in the Department of Defense.” It says Mr. Rumsfeld has had 139 meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff since the start of 2005 and 208 meetings with the senior field commanders.
Seeking to put the criticism of the relatively small number of retired generals into context, the e-mail message also notes that there are more than 8,000 active-duty and retired general officers alive today.
The message was released Friday by the Pentagon’s office of the Directorate for Programs and Community Relations and Public Liaison, but it was unclear who wrote it.

Wow. That’s a lot of meetings. I wonder how many trees his poor assistant kills transcribing all of the text he claims he never reads?

…So, that’s (139 meetings + 208 meetings) x (3 handmade flip-books for entertainment per meeting) x (150 mini-pages per flip-book) / (16 mini-pages per piece of paper) = 9,759.375 pp.

They must have really, really long filing cabinets at the DoD.

So, McClellan resigns. How long did he last again?

I didn’t like him. The press didn’t like him. Of course, the press doesn’t like anybody, so that’s a given. Still, I think he had one of the worst white-collar jobs in the world, so I don’t blame him for moving on to greener pastures.

If Bush really wants to clean house, however, he’s going to have to do a lot better than reshuffling the deck and giving friends the vacant positions. Apparently, he didn’t get the memo.