Never "make an issue" of your sexuality

I trolled the wingnut sites today to see what they're saying about the Boy Scouts of America changing its rules to allow gay Scouts. It was weird because I kept running into the same argument. I guess Wingnut Central commanded its minions to parrot this idea. Here it is, in all its glory.

Many homosexual Scouts have participated in Boy Scouts programs under the old policy (i.e., no gays allowed), and did so without making an issue of their sexual orientation.

Isn't that sweet? Gays mustn't "make an issue" of their sexuality. I guess that would be in keeping with how straights mask their sexuality at all times, never having public weddings or going out for a walk with their wives. And heaven knows they never admit to having children. They don't even wear wedding bands, lest it tip people off and reveal their sexual orientation. It's all kept mum; no tell, no harm. 

Right. Straights proclaim their sexuality loudly, often from the rooftops, using a megaphone. They can't stop telling you that they're straight. It's like an addiction. In fact, their arguments against gays in scouting are yet another announcement of their sexuality. It's all one big, brassy announcement that they're straight -- and aren't they marvelous for having chosen such a special, god-approved sexual orientation? It just makes you want to rush over and hug them.

But dog forbid a Scout lets anyone know that he's gay. That would be a sin -- and it would make the baby Jesus cry.

Wingnut Christian textbooks

Mother Jones did a scathing report about the idiocy peddled in Christian textbooks -- books that kids actually use in their studies. After telling students that dragons were real, hippies were Satanists, and humans and dinosaurs lived side-by-side on the Earth, they turn their attention to literature. These were my favorites:

Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson were a couple of hacks: "[Mark] Twain's outlook was both self-centered and ultimately hopeless…Twain's skepticism was clearly not the honest questioning of a seeker of truth but the deliberate defiance of a confessed rebel."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001

"Several of [Emily Dickinson's] poems show a presumptuous attitude concerning her eternal destiny and a veiled disrespect for authority in general. Throughout her life she viewed salvation as a gamble, not a certainty. Although she did view the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration, she never accepted it as an inerrant guide to life."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001

And then people wonder why Americans don't believe in evolution or global warming. Religion is poisonous.

They speak in tongues

These are the words of Ken Ham, probably the biggest creationist wingnut in the United States:

Atheistic evolutionists do not want any talk of “critiquing” or “thinking critically” about evolutionary ideas, because evolution is their way of explaining life without God, which is why we call evolution a religion.

Uh...evolution is how atheists explain life without god...and that makes it a religion? Lotsa sense there. Tons. It's easy to see why Ham is so admired by the brainless set.

These people don't make sense but their followers never notice. This is because the common factor shared by all wingnuts is that they don't understand logic, don't even know what it is. We truly live in different worlds.

The collapse of the ex-gay movement

There's a story in the New York Times about a change of heart by the president of Exodus International. That's the organization that up till now was seen as a leading force in the "ex-gay" movement -- the ludicrous notion that people can change their sexuality. Doesn't happen, kids.

Alan Chambers, the president of EI, now says that it's impossible to change one's sexual orientation -- and the wingnuts are very upset about this. If they can't make believe gay people have the ability to "change", then their argument against giving us "special rights" (i.e., the same rights others have) falls apart. And if sexual orientation isn't a choice, then it can't be a sin. That sound you hear is wingnut heads exploding.

I'm always intrigued by the nature of the comments by religious wingnuts. Their priorities are so strange. For instance, for this guy, it's all about who gets to share heaven. I don't think he wants icky gays up there:

Robert Gagnon, an associate professor at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of books on homosexuality and the Bible, last week issued a public call for Mr. Chambers to resign. “My greatest concern has to do with Alan’s repeated assurances to homosexually active ‘gay Christians’ that they will be with him in heaven,” he said in an e-mail. 

I have news for him. Without gay people to spruce the place up, heaven is going to look quite dull. In any case, Chambers' remarks are a positive development. The days of straights looking down on gays in this country are just about over.

Wingnuts don't get satire

The perfect Republican.

I suspect my readers already know that wingnuts don't get satire. They don't know what it is or what it's for. GOP types, Christianists, theists, fundies and sundry other wingnuts think The Colbert Report is a right-leaning show. I'll say it again: wingnuts don't get satire.

Of course, we progressives do get satire. It's not uncommon to see entirely satirical posts on many lefty blogs -- because we know our readers will get it. That's because the folks on our team have brains that work. But irony and satire have no meaning to rightwingers. They're just words, or more accurately, sounds.

This makes me wonder what goes through their minds when they read posts by, for instance, Digby. She never explains that she's kidding -- and they'd never know that she was. The words must clang inside their skulls.

"Why are these commies saying stuff I believe in?! Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"

So here's what I'm thinking. Maybe we should only write satire, you know, to drive them mad(der).

Uppercase crazies

We've all encountered those crazy screeds on the internet that are written ALL IN CAPS and feature lots of exclamation marks (!!!) and usually some talk of Jesus and divine retribution. Who are these people and why do they write that way?

What's with the uppercase thing? Is it that they want to shout every word? I wonder if they scream all the time in their lives, at everyone and everything. Do they go to churches where their pastors scream at them, or come from screaming families? Were they drill sergeants? Did they recently stop taking their medication?

It was a dark and stormy night

Click to embiggen a bit.

Carmine, our in-house artist at the Worlds Blog, took this photo yesterday as he was driving in New York City. Ominous. And it's totally weird when clouds have a sharp line at their edge. It shouldn't be allowed, I tell you! It's unnatural!

Perhaps if a nice, solid GOP president comes along, s/he'll pass a law that makes future clouds conform to the soft, rounded expectations of good Christian families. Or maybe s/he'll get God himself to fix this problem. I'm sure our new GOP president will focus from day one on all sorts of important issues, just like this one. Can't wait.

Wingnuts will love this cloud

GOP cloud on Saturn.

There's an article on physorg today about an arrow-shaped cloud on Saturn. That's it on the left.

The article says the cloud is "the size of Texas". Hmmm. A cloud on Saturn shaped like an arrow pointing rightward -- and it's the size of Texas. Jeebus! It must be a sign.

Religious loons love signs. Will Rick Perry say this cloud is a sign from god? After all, it points rightward and its Texas size "tells" Earthlings that Perry is the right choice. It's totally nuts but it occurs to me that these idiots believe in nonsense, so why not this? I think they're gonna love this one. (Though they may miss it since science seems to scoot right by them.)

The pendulum effect

Everything in life is cyclical. Trends go one way and then the other, and this is true of society itself. I've seen this happen before.

Just before a major shift, the old regime becomes a cartoon of itself, and literally pushes itself over a cliff. We see that happening now as the GOP threatens to bring down the world economy because of petulance. This exaggerated version of the GOP is a pre-shock. Their whole movement is about to collapse. I think this sad chapter of American life, where god-obsessed know-nothings have run the country into ruin, is about to end. The level of their craziness tells me so. They're overripe; they stink. But rejoice, because this means the end is nigh.

When society gets so out of whack that you think it will surely blow up from logical contradictions, it means a change is coming. In this case, I think the crazy will literally bring on the normal. It's time for an opposite reaction.

Look at the 1950s. You want to talk boring? You know nothing about boredom if you weren't alive back then. It was stultifying throughout the United States. It was repressed and authoritarian and a million other deadly adjectives, but mostly it was boring. So what happened? The Sixties, that's what! Yay! Sex and fun!

The insanity that has our country by the throat is on the way out. I can tell by the smell. There will be a swing toward sanity, and probably quite soon. When these swings occur, they can be huge. Let's hope it's big enough to sweep out the stupid so sane ideas can return to the political arena.

Everything is a pendulum. Hang on. A clear-eyed view of reality may be one, short swing away.

Wingnut pledges = mental intransigence

Wingnuts: they're everywhere!

AP:

Republican presidential contenders may be feeling nostalgic for the days when a candidate could focus on just one pledge: the oath of office.

And so they take this oath and that oath -- all crazy, of course. But that's not the point of this post. The reason why rightwingers and religious loons are so authoritarian is that their brains can't update. They cannot take in new information. This is the crucial difference between liberals and rightwingers: our minds can update.

If science reveals something, liberals incorporate the new information into their worldview and act accordingly. Liberals pay attention to the world around them. Authoritarians, on the other hand, rely only on preconceived notions. That's why they like things like the ten commandments and bibles and old hairstyles. They love rules. And they get absolutely crazed when anyone suggests new information that might affect these rules. Heresy!

So it makes perfect sense that people of this stripe think it a good idea to take ideological pledges. They don't need to see the actual situations that these pledges will apply to -- because there's no reality in their equations, only rules. So they take a pledge and, come hell or high water (or, you know, facts), they will not change their stance.

This happens because their brains aren't working properly. Being rational requires that we take the real world into account. They don't. They take pledges.

Wingnuts today

Here's what the wingnuts are thinking about are repeating today. This is from Worldnutdaily:

A mysterious, pale green figure seen in televised news coverage of the Egyptian riots has prompted some viewers to ask, "Could this be the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse?"

The footage, provided by Euronews and subsequently seen on MSNBC, CNN and uploaded over a dozen times to the popular video sharing site YouTube, captures the fiery, violent protests in Cairo this past week … and something else.

Between the crowds of protesters and barricades, the video shows a flowing, pale green image that resembles an erect rider atop a horse in Medieval-like barding. The ethereal figure remains for a few moments before floating over protesters' heads and off the screen.

The last of the biblical Book of Revelation's Four Horseman of the Apocalyse, the "pale rider" is said to be the bringer of death and the forerunner of "hell" on earth.

Are all these events the natural order of things, or warnings of the end times described in the Bible? This DVD probes the answer ...

Oh, I see. The wingnuts are selling something. Surprise, surprise. And rubes all over the country will get their panties in a bunch over this. It's wingnuts gone wild. You almost find yourself pitying these people. Just kidding. What a bunch of jerks!