I was trying to figure out what I wanted to write about tonight when I came across this article from unintentionally hilarious Christian news service Agape Press (“You’ll be agape at our ignorance!”)
The article talks about the ACLU’s lawsuit against a West Virginia school that has a portrait of Jay-sus watching over students with His warm, friendly, righteously vengeful eyes. I wonder if it’s the kind of portrait that looks as though it is always watching you? Creepy.
The funniness of the article depends mostly on the heavily anti-ACLU tone (eg: “so-called separation of church and state”). What really caught my eye, though, is the term “pro-family.” What the hell is that? Is anyone here anti-family? Anybody standing in dead-end culdesacs holding signs that say things like, “MOTHER OR MONSTER?” and “NINE OUT OF TEN CANCER PATIENTS COME FROM FAMILIES!”? No? Okay, just checking.
I Googled around and found a site called the Pro-Family Network (do your own damn Googling if you want the link). The site features a lot of red, white, and blue graphics as well as a fuzzy drawing of what appears to be a Hispanic family. A banner announces “Homosexuality: It Doesn’t Have to Last a Lifetime,” apparently selling some sort of treatment program for gay folks. Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere. Pro-family means pro-hispanic families, and also anti-gay. That makes sense, because gay people can’t have families but hispanics can. Well, except for hispanics who are sterile, and the gay people who do have families already, either through adoption, insemination, or other means.
The front page of the site also boasts a big headline: “GAMBLING? IN OHIO? Not if PFN has anything to say about it! This also makes sense, because most gamblers don’t have familes, unless they are straight and hispanic.
The site also indicates they are (surprise!) against abortion. I suppose this means that not only are they pro-family, but they’re pro-families living in poverty having babies they don’t want. So we’re up to pro-hispanic straight nongamblers who live in poverty and/or hate one another.
I’d like to go on, but I’ve lost the will to live. Actually, I’m just outrageously tired and every time I blink, ten minutes pass. I’ll just wrap up this entry by spelling out the moral for you: Jesus has eyes that follow you wherever you go, and he knows when you try to call the ACLU so don’t even try it. Also: you may have thought you were pro-family, but you were wrong and creepy Jesus with his eyes — oh the eyes! — will punish you accordingly.
"Bridgeport, population 7,400, is located in north central West Virginia and home to more than a dozen churches."
North central West virginia? Well, at least I know it's not in the south? :/
As for the portrait having been there since '63. Well, if I would have killed someone 20 years ago that doesn't make them any less dead. The law is the law. The fact that everyone has overlooked it all these years doesn't mean it isn't still being broken …
Or is there a statute of limitation on constitutional violations? Perhaps it's OK to deny black people access to your establishment if you can show no coloured person has set foot in your place since the early fifties?
I love this post. It reflects your weariness, outrage, and incredulity all at once, and it does so with intelligence and humor. I laughed. I cried. It was better than "Gump".
The only thing I could think of that might make it better would be if it was, I don't, cross-posted somewhere else.
But where?
You can post it in two places if you want. Sall I'm sayin'.
"Agape" in the title of that news service is actually a Greek word that in translation, for instance translations of the Bible, means "lovingkindness" or "brotherly love", basically love that's not erotic love. This moment of random pedantry is brought to you by my eighth grade Latin teacher, Mr. W.
I think I very well may have just fallen in love with you.
Seriously, your blog is making my day.