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Transcript:
Last week, the Trump Administration abruptly fired the guy running the US Navy, which is just a totally normal thing to do when you’re in the middle of losing an ocean-based war you started. But I won’t get into that, because this is not a military strategy channel, despite the fact that one of my most popular videos was, in fact, about military strategy.
But no, this is a critical thinking channel, and so today I’m more interested in the guy who has suddenly become the acting director of the US Navy: Hung Cao. Pause for childish giggling.
Cao is actually more qualified to run the Navy, considering that the last guy was a Trump donor with no military experience while Cao has in fact served in the US Navy. But before you get a little excited that for once, someone in this administration is a normal person qualified to do the job they’ve been given, check out this interview he did on a batshit fundamentalist Christian podcast two years ago during an unsuccessful Senate run.
Yeah, he was running for office in Virginia, where he has lived since he was 12 besides jaunts off to college. As far as I can tell, he’s never even been to Monterey, but the city is apparently SO overrun with the forces of Satan that it was the first place to come to mind when he reached for an example of true hell on Earth.
This struck me as strange, because I live about two hours north of Monterey, and since I took up SCUBA diving a few years ago, I’ve visited the town many times. Never once had I seen a witch, but to be fair, witches famously do NOT enjoy spending time underwater. Everyone knows that the best way to tell whether a person is a witch or just a woman with an opinion is to toss her in the water and if she DOESN’T go under, well that there is an agent of evil. So, despite the fact that I’ve seen some weird stuff under there, like sea puppers and fancy crab bois, I’m confident that I’ve never seen a witch.
But maybe if I spent more time on land, I would better understand what Cao was talking about. And so, last weekend I packed up the car and Indy and I drove down to Monterey to investigate the witches of Lovers Point.
The first thing we discovered is that there is no Lovers Point in Monterey: that’s actually in the neighboring town, Pacific Grove. (Okay, I did know that already but for the sake of narrative let’s just go with it.) Lovers Point was NOT originally called “Lovers of Christ Point,” as Cao says. It was probably originally called something completely different by the Ohlone tribe that first inhabited the area, and then probably some other name by the Chinese immigrants who were driven out when someone lit their village on fire in order to make room for a Methodist Christian retreat in the late 19th century, which is why the area was then named “Lovers of Jesus Point,” and it’s also why Pacific Grove was the last “dry” town in California, where you had to go a block down into Monterey if you wanted a stiff drink.
But Cao is right about one thing: at some point, the “Jesus” was dropped and it is now simply known as “Lovers Point,” with the apostrophe being a subject of hot local debate.
So, did they drop the “Jesus” and possibly add an apostrophe because all the good Christian revivals were replaced with all day pagan fuck fests? To find out, bright and early on Saturday morning, Indy and I hopped on a bike and sidecar and rode the mile and a half down the trail along the coast to Lovers Point.
I was alert and on the lookout for anything that might suggest witchcraft, and as we approached Lovers Point itself, I spotted something: a horse, but no ordinary horse. It was very small, and it was wearing a t-shirt, and it was being led by a woman who I was positive must be capable of harnessing the power of Satan in order to create such an unholy abomination. And so, I pulled over and watched, as the woman and tiny horse walked along the path high-fiving and cheering for other people wearing similar t-shirts. I saw that their shirts said something about a 5k, and so I assumed this must be a fundraiser for their next big Satanic orgy and potluck. I decided to investigate.
“Are you guys fundraising?”
“Yeah, Child Evangelism Fellowship, the Good News Clubs in public schools!”
Okay, so…not witchcraft. Christian child evangelism clubs in public schools.
If “Good News Club” rings a bell, it might be because of a US Supreme Court decision involving that organization back in 2001: Good News Club v. Milford Central School. “Good News Clubs” were created in the 1920s by religious zealots in the San Francisco Bay Area who wanted to target children as they left school and convert them to Christianity and/or amp up their evangelical behaviors. At first, they were held in churches close to schools, and then moved into homes next to schools. By the 1960s, they had spread across the country, formally organized under the overarching nonprofit “Child Evangelism Fellowship” and were directly challenging the First Amendment and separation of Church and State by holding club meetups inside public schools.
While it was perfectly legal and just as easy for them to hold meetings in churches and homes and even private religious schools, the reason for their desire to get into public elementary schools is obvious: children do not understand the difference between something taught to them by their teacher in a classroom before 3pm and something taught to them by a new teacher in the same classroom after 3pm. They know that they should trust and believe what they are taught there. Plus, convincing their parents to let them go to a church or home is way harder than convincing them to stay a little longer in school to hang out with their friends in something as innocuous as a “Good News Club.”
Prior to Good News Club v. Milford Central School, there was a precedent for some religion-tinged stuff to be in public schools, provided that it was educational. But when an elementary school in New York rejected the Good News Club because it was blatantly evangelical, meaning that the entire purpose was to trick children into joining their religion, the Supreme Court majority overturned lower courts by saying, “No, actually that’s totally fine. Come on into the taxpayer-funded elementary school and turn the kids into little missionaries.”
It’s funny that the Supreme Court today is so wildly anti-constitution that sometimes we forget that even 25 years ago, they were making some pretty shitty decisions. In fact, just a year prior to this decision, they stole the presidency from Al Gore and handed it to George W. Bush. Anyway, let’s see who wrote the majority opinion for Good News Club v. Milford Central School…oh god damn it, Clarence Thomas, stop ruining everything!
So yeah, thanks to that decision, Good News Clubs are allowed to operate in public schools today, and have filed and won many more lawsuits to ensure they can continue on. According to the Child Evangelism Fellowship’s website, last year alone they groomed more than 34 MILLION children around the world. And I do use the term “groomed” purposefully: they are targeting children too young to understand the difference between a teacher and a minister, or between “school” and “after-school program, in order to indoctrinate them in their religion and turn them into evangelical missionaries themselves who will pester their friends into joining the fun club where they sing songs and read about how much God loves genocide. No, seriously, one of the Good News Club’s lessons was about God commanding Saul to destroy the Amalekites: “put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” Tiny horses are not mentioned. The important lesson? You always need to listen to what God says, even if–no, ESPECIALLY if–he wants you to genocide them for being nonbelievers. Thanks, Clarence Thomas!
As Indy and I continued our bike ride down the coast to Carmel, I pondered all of this. Not only was Monterey (and Pacific Grove, and Carmel for the record) NOT overrun with witchcraft, but they had enough local residents jazzed about establishing a conservative Christian theocracy that they were able to host a 5k fundraiser. The NorCal wing of Child Evangelical Fellowship has eight chapters within a daytrip of one another. When we finished the ride, I was no longer filming so I’m sorry but you’re just going to have to take my word for this: I parked the bike in front of an apartment complex and as I helped Indy out of the side car I heard a man shout “HEY!” I turned, and on the second floor of the complex stood three young men in white dress shirts and khakis, standing in front of an apartment door and waving. I said “Hi?” One said “I like your dog!” I said “Oh, thanks.” I hoped that would be the end of things, but then he spoke up again: “Do you want to come to our church?”
I didn’t comprehend what he had just said, because I honestly had assumed they were going to invite me up to have beers in their apartment. But then I saw that they were all just standing there in front of the closed door. They weren’t at their own place. They were missionaries, knocking on doors. I said “No thanks, I’m an atheist, but have fun.” They said “Everyone is welcome at church,” and then some more stuff but I couldn’t really hear them because Indy and I were already walking away.
So not only did I not find any covens of witches in the area, but I had managed to run into two completely separate groups of Christian evangelicals without even trying. Look, Monterey is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and if you, like me, are a Steinbeck fan, you know it has a rich history in marine science, and today the Monterey Bay Aquarium does an amazing job continuing that work and educating people about the incredible biodiversity of this special place. Clearly, though, we all need to work harder to make Hung Cao’s vision a reality: let’s make this place a little more witchy and a lot less evangelical Christian. A few years ago I stumbled upon a witch paddle out on Lake Tahoe and it was absolutely glorious, and apparently these covens of water witches are popping up along coastlines across the country. Maybe it’s time someone sets one up in Monterey?
In the meantime, I’m going to go back to spending most of my time there underwater. At ten meters down, no one can hear you proselytize.
